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Teaching the Arts in the Primary Curriculum
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Teaching the Arts in the Primary Curriculum



May 2021 | 216 pages | Learning Matters

Learning in the arts does not fit in with simple, conventional methodologies for teaching and assessing in the traditional sense, but it has an immense power to transform children’s understanding of the world around them, and their lives. Many jobs, currently and of the future, will demand the skills that learning in the arts will develop.  

This book brings Arts Education sharply into focus as a meaningful, learning experience for children of pre-school and primary age (3-11 years).  It reinforces the potential for the wide range of physical, mental and emotional development, through learning opportunities that engagement in arts practice facilitates. 
 

  • Provides insight into how teachers can support children to consider contemporary challenges that face their generation.
  • Includes expert voices from the world of education to demonstrate an expansive, and perhaps surprising, view of where and how the Arts can be found. 
  • Shows how we can bring the arts so easily into our curriculum, and into our classrooms.  
 
What is learning in the Arts?
 
The Arts and education for sustainable development
 
An eye on the past: Curious explorations
 
The wider role of art in primary and Early Years education
 
The social art of storytelling
 
Music: Everywhere and everyday
 
Science and the Arts: Closer than you think
 
Poetry: The art of expression
 
Digital media and primary computing
 
Dance: The art of movement
 
Maths and the Arts
 
What is Creative writing?
 
Drama: Process of performance?

This text has been adopted for the year 2 Foundation Degree students, encouraging students to utilise arts education across the curriculum. The reflection boxes enable students to consider their working practice, as well as the sections on ‘theory focus’ and case studies. Clear links to teaching standards to enable students who are progressing onto teacher training programmes to explore key content.

Miss Tracey Canham
Education, New College Swindon
May 28, 2022

This little book provides some wonderful insights into Arts in Education. For students working in Early Education, with younger children, the book highlights the value and importance of Arts Education in supporting emerging concepts. Exploring Art as a way of learning in all areas of the curriculum, the book engages with Storytelling to support Language and communication, music, dance and highlighting links between science and arts exploring emergent concepts that are closer than we would imagine in our daily lives.

Dr Marguerita Magennis
Early Years, Portobello College
September 5, 2022