Who is it for?

It will be helpful for trainees, primary teachers, art and design teachers, heads of departments, or anyone leading training in schools, across all phases and sectors.

 

What will it do?

The toolkit will:

  • help build a better understanding of the content, dimensions, scope, and wider aspects of your curriculum.
  • remind us of the importance of determining the values and the ethos we set for learning in our subject.
  • select the relevant knowledge, content and processes to develop the most suitable skills, habits, behaviours and attributes in our learners.
  • empower art educators to choose and use the knowledge of their lived experiences in preference to ‘off-the-shelf’ models.

 

How can we use it?

The Big Landscape has several bands of information that can be used to gain an overview of the art landscape. The sky-blue band is called What?, the green band is Why? and the orange band is How?

 

What? Why? and How? bands 

The What? band is the sky, setting out the content of the curriculum: what knowledge, concepts, techniques or media processes might we explore or include? 

The Why? band is the landscape and explores why we include these things – for example, why knowledge and skills in art and design support the development of learning habits, attitudes or helpful behaviours, or why particular themes and dimensions contextualise learning and shape a topic or project. 

The How? band is the foreground – the detail of our teaching approach, our pedagogy and learning model. It is also the learning environment and way in which we might communicate concepts, processes and ideas most effectively to the learner. 

 

Who created the Big Landscape?

The Big Landscape is created by the NSEAD Special Interest Group for Better Practice, with its members coming from across the UK, every phase as well as initial teacher educators. Find out more here.

Content has been informed by NSEAD’s research groups including the Anti-Racist Art Education Action Group, the Anti-ableist Pedagogies SIG (AAP), and the Gender, Art and Transformative Education group (GATE).