Teachers TV top tips
Title
Top tips
Materials author
Peter Sanders
Associated Teachers TV programmes
KS1/2 Art: Drawing Self Portraits / WholeSchool Portrait Project
Series description
Developing drawing and observational skills with portraits
Exploring the theme of portraits from nursery to Year 6
Note to teachers
This tips sheet was not created by Teachers TV but the author has allowed us to publish it here to be used for educational purposes.
Fresh from his appearances in Drawing Self Portraits and Whole School Art Project, art co-ordinator Peter Sanders let Teachers TV in on his secrets and revealed a few of his classroom must-dos
Don’t put children down for what they’ve done. Don’t give negative feedback on anything they produce. Always support and encourage them, but give them something concrete to build on
Always be really well prepared before an art lesson with the right materials
Be flexible: be prepared to set the classroom up differently if it works better that way
If there are other adults working in the classroom, make sure that they’re really well informed about your learning intentions, what you want from the lesson and how you feel they have a role to play within that classroom. Make them an integral part of the lesson
LSAs and TAs are very much better qualified than was the case 10-15 years ago, when their job consisted of sticking little bits of tissue paper onto roses and so on. They’re very much more skilful now, so make the most of the human resources you’ve got
Get help from other people
Take your class to galleries at least once a term. Children are incredibly open to new ways of working, so we try to expose them to images that are different, that show quite challenging ways of solving a problem. This allows them to say “if they can do that and it’s exhibited, then I can do that.” Children will always have a response to a challenging piece of work. What is accepted as being classically correct isn’t always the best way of going about something
Emphasise that art is a totally valid way of having ideas and communicating and that it is just as serious as writing, science or maths. That being the case, your expectations for children’s behaviour and what they produce should be very high.
Getting artists in is fantastic. Whether it’s parents or artists-in-residence, they completely change the way children and teachers think about the way they work. It allows children to see a practitioner at work.
Art doesn’t have to happen in the afternoons. Everyone accepts that mornings are when children are most lively (and so are most teachers); art shouldn’t be a filler-in
Art can be the starting point for a mass of other work, particularly literacy. We often do lots of writing on the back of artwork that has been produced.