The Christian faith is at the heart of our school community.

At Christ Church we all care, learn and work together for God and others. 

‘For we are all God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do’. Ephesians 2:10 

Our Christian Values are

Creation, Community, Wisdom, Endurance, Thankfulness, Reconciliation

Intent

At Christ Church we are committed to a broad, balanced and creative curriculum. We aim to contribute to the spiritual, moral, cultural, mental and physical needs of every individual. We endeavour to ensure that all of our children fulfil their potential within the context of a school environment committed and dedicated to the celebration and participation of the arts.

We believe the arts are essential to children’s wellbeing and provide a key opportunity for expression and creativity, particularly for those who excel at art but struggle with other areas of education. The arts provide a platform for children of all backgrounds and abilities to engage and thrive in an imaginative and holistic curriculum. We have a high number of children from disadvantaged backgrounds and the arts provide all of our children with the opportunity to succeed and blossom.

We develop the whole child through enriching, inspiring cross curricular experiences allowing expression and creativity to develop and flourish. Our children are provided with the opportunity to become creative practitioners through high quality teaching, workshops, visits to places of cultural significance, specialist music sessions, an extensive range of clubs, links with outside art and culture companies and an exciting and well-rounded curriculum immersed within arts and culture.

Implementation

We ensure the arts are deeply embedded into our school life and are proud to have achieved the following:

• Achieved Gold Award for the Artsmark
• Achieved Rights Respecting School status
• Increased CPD opportunities, raising staff confidence and skill in teaching the arts
• Implemented whole school initiatives to promote oracy and presentational skills by joining the Camden Oracy Hub
• Increased the amount of artwork displayed throughout the school
• Created a whole school art display to monitor and show progression
• Embedded cross curricular links between the arts and core subjects
• Used the arts to raise attainment
• Created an Arts Council
• Ran and entered internal and external art competitions
• Showcased pupils’ work in a school run art exhibition
• Introduced a whole school art week
• Utilised the skills of the local community through parent led art workshops
• Implemented an Arts Scheme of Work
• Increased participation and attendance in arts clubs
• Raised the amount of art clubs available
• Increased art opportunities for pupil premium children
• Maintained existing partnerships
• Formed key new partnerships
• Increased opportunities and experiences for pupils of all ages and abilities

We have worked with the Oracy Hub to develop pupil’s language and confidence. We have had a whole school focus on improving and developing pupil’s communication skills and have used the arts mark to give pupil’s the opportunity to perform and present, thus giving them important life skills to take into the future.

Our art partnerships have meant all pupils have had a plethora of opportunities and experiences across the arts. We have also helped to inspire and support our students who are about to embark on their journey to higher education by organizing visits to Secondary School Art Exhibitions and facilitating meetings between GCSE and A Level pupils for our gifted and talented students . We have additionally used our partnerships to allow pupils to give back their local community with choir performances at a local retirement home, the Regents Park Barracks and by raising money for local music projects through carol singing at Euston station. We have not only utilise the talents of our staff but have also increased CPD opportunities. Staff members have had sculpture, wire modelling and fine art training at the Hall and have attended a day’s training to embed arts across the curriculum. We have established key partnerships over the last two years and are excited to contuse collaborating with them for future projects. We have given pupils ownership by creating an Arts Council. Pedagogy has been influenced by ensuring art, music and drama is embedded into our practice across the curriculum. Our Arts Coordinator has worked with Senior Leadership to embed art across all subjects. For example, we have promoted a new art focus in maths and have created a whole school art display that has a maths focus for each year group and we launched a whole school reading area competition to promote a love of reading whilst ensuring pupils have somewhere inspiring and exciting to read in every classroom

Impact

We use the arts to collaborate as a whole school and community, we are excited to continue enhancing pupil’s creativity, enjoyment and attainment through a meaningful curriculum, enriching arts into our daily practice. We ensure art is rooted firmly into our daily practice across all subjects and school life. We have refined our Art Scheme of Work which has led to high quality teaching and provision of art across the school. Enriching art experiences both in and outside of the classroom have been intertwined with literacy and topic focuses to ensure they are meaningful in the curriculum as well as providing pupils with fantastic opportunities. By striving to embed the arts into our school life we have increased involvement in the arts from external and internal visits, workshops and experiences in music, drama, sculpture, filmmaking, dance and art. We have further embedded the promotion, teaching and love of the arts into the daily life of our school. We have built partnerships, raised academic attainment, increased the number of art competitions, increased pupils engagement, raised the number of art displays, created a pupil voice for art, increased opportunities in the arts and have amplified the love and promotion of the arts within the school. We ensure the arts are of high importance in the daily life and community of our school which promotes a rich and creative curriculum for our pupils.