Creative Arts 

Across the country, research shows that the arts are increasingly being squeezed out of our children’s education to make way for a greater focus on core subjects, such as English and mathematics. However, at King Athelstan we are passionate about the creative arts and have invested heavily in ensuring our children experience high quality art, music, drama and dance lessons throughout their time at our school.

The creative arts support children’s mental wellbeing, emotional and social skills and confidence, fostering their imagination and helping them express themselves to reach their full potential. Opportunities to be physically active, developing gross motor skills, stamina and agility through dance and drama, and fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination through drawing, painting, modelling or learning an instrument are vital skills, supporting children in being successful in all aspects of their lives. We know that children who have a rich grounding in the arts are more likely to vote, go to university, stay in a job role and have a positive impact as a citizen in their community.

We are very lucky to have a specialist art teacher who delivers lessons in our dedicated art room, so children can be as creative (and messy!) as they like; they learn new art skills with different media and foster their love of art through craft and design, weaved seamlessly through our curriculum topics.

Class names at King Athelstan have always been artists – it is an excellent way of integrating contemporary and modern art into everyday life and language at school and ensures that children have a good foundation of knowledge about significant artists who have influenced art throughout history. At the start of each year children create amazing pieces of art based on their class artist, which are framed and displayed around the school.

Click here to find out more about our class artists and year groups.

As well as an amazing art space, we also have a music room where our specialist music teacher develops children’s musical skills, through learning new instruments and linking music learning to all topics across our curriculum.  

Click the pictures above to learn more about how music, art, drama and dance are taught at King Athelstan.