Sweden Art Curriculum - Years 1-3 (Excerpt from the 2011 Curriculum, revised 2018)

Aim:

Teaching in art should aim at helping pupils develop knowledge of how pictures are created and can be interpreted. Through teaching, pupils should gain experience of visual cultures comprising film, photos, design, art, architecture and various environments. Teaching should provide opportunities for pupils to develop their knowledge about how to produce and present their own images using different methods, materials and forms of expression. Teaching should contribute to pupils developing their creativity and their interest in being creative. It should also encourage pupils to take their own initiatives and work using an investigative and problem-solving approach. Teaching should contribute to pupils developing their understanding of how visual messages are designed in different media. Teaching should also give pupils opportunities to discuss and critically examine different forms of visual communication and contribute to pupils developing knowledge of pictures and images in different cultures, both historically and in modern times. Through teaching, pupils should also be given the opportunity to use their knowledge of different types of images in their own creativity.

Core Content:

• Producing pictures: Production of narrative pictures, such as illustrations for storybooks; drawing, painting, modelling and design; photography and transfer of images using computer software.
• Tools for producing pictures: Different elements that make up a picture: colour, form, line, surface, foreground and background; some tools for drawing, painting, modelling, designing and photographing and what these are called; materials that are flat and can be shaped, such as paper, clay, plaster and natural materials and how these can be used in art work.
• Analysis of pictures: Informative pictures, such as those for textbooks and how they are designed and function; historical and contemporary pictures and what they relate, such as documentary images from the local area and art pictures.

Knowledge Requirements (Grade E at the end of Year 6):

Pupils can produce some types of narrative and informative pictures that communicate experiences and views using a simple visual language and partly developed forms of expression to communicate a message. In their work, pupils use a few different techniques, tools and materials in a basically functional way to create different expressions. In addition, pupils combine some different pictorial elements in a basically functional way. Pupils, when producing pictures, can contribute to developing ideas in some different subject areas by reusing contemporary or historical pictures and working with other reference and inspirational material. During work processes, pupils contribute to formulating and choosing action alternatives that lead to improvements. In addition, pupils can present their pictures with some adaptation to purpose and context. Pupils can also make simple assessments of work processes and quality in the work. Pupils can apply simple and, to some extent, informed reasoning about expression, content and function in pictures from different periods and cultures, and make connections to their own experiences, other pictures and phenomena in the surrounding world.