A calm, safe and welcoming place in which to work and learn.
A place where everyone supports each other to achieve.
A place we enjoy coming to each day.

At Childwall Abbey School we are committed to providing all children with learning opportunities which enable them to engage in art and design activities across the curriculum and which prepare our pupils for life beyond our school.

Art provides a calm space and opportunities for reflection. Through their engagement with art and design, our pupils acquire the ability to make informed responses to their own work and that of others, leading to a more reflective approach which transfers to other areas of their life. Pupils are also encouraged to work independently, with increasing confidence as well as collectively and productively, which reinforces important empathy and team working life-skills.

Art enriches pupils lives and helps them to develop a deeper understanding of their own and other people’s culture and life experiences, history and diversity. The study of Art provides many opportunities for cross-curricular links as well as challenging our pupils to apply critical thinking to the work in hand.

The skills and knowledge pupils develop throughout each art topic, are mapped across each year group and throughout the school to ensure progression. Skills and techniques such as painting, drawing, printmaking, 3D design and clay are revisited through differing projects from Year 7 to 9 and this supportive but challenging approach ensures pupils have the confidence and ability to aspire to move forward and achieve through either an Entry level or a GCSE in Art and Design.

Pupils develop and apply many transferable skills from the study of Art, such as Social Communication, Oracy, Literacy, Numeracy and the acquisition and use of subject specific vocabulary, all of which help under pin the art curriculum.

Art can enable many pupils to engage over time with media which due to sensory sensitivities, SEMH issues or lack of confidence, they may previously have been averse to using. This allows pupils gradually to engage in the wider Art curriculum and this improved behaviour for learning may transfer to other areas of the curriculum.

We are able to enrich our pupils’ life experiences not only within school but by providing trips and visits to Liverpool’s many cultural locations and by exploring the local area beyond the school site. Our city has a wealth of cultural resources and a strong community. These experiences give pupils the confidence to contribute creatively to that community and arm them with the knowledge and cultural capital to prepare them to engage with greater confidence socially both within school and in their lives beyond transition.