skip to main content

Putting the Arts at the heart of a Primary Curriculum

Find out how to use the Arts to promote promote pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development.

karen-cutout
Created and Led by
Karen Hosack-Janes
Duration
9.30-3.00 or equivalent
Venue
Online or in-person
Target Audience
Senior & Middle Leaders, KS1 & 2 Teachers

Essential Questions:

  • How can the Arts be used to ensure high levels of pupil engagement across curriculum areas that build on pupils' prior experiences?
  • How can we involve pupils more in the development of what is taught with the view of maximising creative opportunities?

Why is this course relevant or important:

  • Putting the Arts at the heart of a curriculum is consistent with the National Curriculum requirement to promote pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development.
  • The Arts prepare pupils well for later life, especially where the use of one's imagination and the generation of original ideas will be increasingly valued due to the ever growing scope of automation for non-routine tasks.

The course will advance your understanding of:

  • The nature of creativity in a mastery curriculum.
  • How to maximise creativity opportunities for pupils across subject areas using the Arts as a central stimulus.

Take away:

  • A strong rationale for putting the Arts at the heart of a primary curriculum.
  • Many ideas, based on examples from schools, for implementing teaching and learning across the curriculum using the Arts.

Enquire about a consultant delivering this course to your school/cluster

* means required field

    Can't find your school? Enter the address manually
  1. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Booking Options

This course is delivered by one of our team, Karen Hosack Janes. Karen can come to your school to deliver it in person or host a bespoke zoom session with your organisation. Complete the Enquiry form and we'll be back in touch ASAP.

Enquire
Evidence Informed
Evidence Informed
All our courses are based on peer-reviewed research.
Practical and inspiring
Practical and inspiring
We bridge the gap between evidence and practice.
Versatile environments
Versatile environments
We offer a choice between on-demand and live courses.

Latest from the Blog

Are We Misunderstanding Memory?
Are We Misunderstanding Memory?
26th May 2025
While memory is often defined as the retrieval of information from long-term storage, this narrow view risks reducing learning to passive recall. Drawing on cognitive science, this blog reframes memory as a dynamic construct involving remembering, knowing, and reasoning — all essential for usable knowledge. It argues that strategies like retrieval practice are effective for recall but insufficient for deeper understanding. To bridge this gap, the blog makes the case for explicitly teaching metacognition and oracy. These approaches equip pupils with the cognitive and communicative tools to connect, organise, and apply their knowledge, transforming memory from static storage into a flexible, functional system for thinking and learning.
Learning Traps: Teaching by Letting Students Fall In
Learning Traps: Teaching by Letting Students Fall In
7th Apr 2025
We often tell pupils that mistakes are part of learning — but what if we designed lessons to depend on them?“ Learning traps,” deliberate set-ups that help students learn through their mistakes, are not about tricking them but about crafting situations where getting it wrong becomes the most powerful route to getting it right. They expose faulty reasoning, common misconceptions, or surface-level thinking to deepen understanding. It’s a strategy as old as Socratic dialogue and as sharp as a well-set maths problem. And the evidence supports it. In this blog, you’ll discover five practical types of learning traps — from the ‘almost-right answer’ to the ‘fake success’ trap — each illustrated with classroom examples across subjects. You’ll also find guidance on how to use traps responsibly, along with references to key research on productive failure, retrieval, and metacognitive development.
Enquiry-Based Learning: Striking a Balance Between Curiosity and Prior Knowledge
Enquiry-Based Learning: Striking a Balance Between Curiosity and Prior Knowledge
10th Jan 2025
Enquiry-based learning is a pedagogical approach that lies at the heart of many curricula, such as the International Baccalaureate (IB) Primary Years Programme (PYP) and the International Primary Curriculum (IPC). It encourages students to ask questions, explore ideas, and construct their understanding of the world. However, this approach also raises important questions about its effectiveness for all learners, mainly when prior knowledge is limited.This blog explores the relationship between enquiry-based learning and prior knowledge, highlighting research supporting the need to balance discovery and foundational understanding.