Heather Murdoch and Annick McLinden describe how art and design and technology are used within their curriculum.

In art activities, pupils can explore, create and imagine - whatever their understanding of the everyday world. Design and technology ‘making’ activities encourage a sense of achievement and opportunities to learn how to use and direct assistance. Both are potential sources of a sense of absorption and ‘flow’.

At early Phases of the Victoria curriculum, artwork develops from learners’ interest in moving materials – often foodstuffs - on a surface, creating tactile patterns as they go. Dedicated art activities, creating more permanent patterns, may take place on textured surfaces, made perhaps with wiki sticks or art mache. These present tactually interesting and challenging spaces with natural boundaries, within which students can experiment with different media.

At Phases 1 and 2, art activities always have strong tactile elements, so that students’ hand or body movements provide instant feedback about the effects of their actions. Even students who normally use sight to gain information often cannot focus simultaneously on visual and kinaesthetic-tactile input – although they can and do appreciate the visual elements later.

As students progress through the curriculum, art activities become more differentiated and the emphasis changes from process to process and product. Initiallly the artwork produced is primarily relevant as a means of reviewing the activity, but gradually products become things of interest for their own sake.

For students to understand the process-product link, the products must be meaningful to them. Birthday cards, for example, have limited meaning for our Phase 2 and 3 students. Instead, we make instantly functional products - microwave playdough, jigsaws from photos of our faces, a huge box decorated as a play area.

Pure creativity, of course, remains important. Students use an increasing variety of media, chosen to meet both visual and tactile needs and to be accessible to students with restricted movement. A recent project, for example, involved filling rubber gloves with paint, knotting the wrists and then puncturing the gloves, so that paint squirted onto old cotton sheets laid out below. Eric, in particular, was fascinated by the look, feel and smell of the gloves, and the patterns created (on the sheets, in the air and on Di, his co-worker) by squeezing them in different ways. It was a great afternoon - fun, safe, social, creative, very visual and tactile and fully engaging a wide range of students.

Our Phase 2-4 art sessions are often group-based, sometimes with students working individually with staff on parallel projects; sometimes with the whole group working co-operatively. Projects tend to be floor-based rather than table-based, and when the weather permits we often work outdoors (it can get very messy!) As with everything we do, art projects are designed to meet cross-curricular aims. Below are examples from the social relationships and emotional development and ownership of learning areas for students working at Phases 2-4.

Many projects are large-scale, allowing students to work with their hands, feet or whole bodies - whatever suits them best. Large-scale group work also allows scope for students with different priorities and preferences, some may be keen to participate immediately, for example, while others may prefer to watch and see the work unfold. Some have their own ideas whilst others like to copy and adapt. Some are stimulated by the social buzz of collaborative work, and the frequent (sometimes intended!) humour. All make choices, what to do, which colours or tools to use, whether to participate or supervise or tutor others.

A few years ago we changed the location of the students’ coat pegs, creating a small cloakroom area. Students used long and short paint rollers, their hands and their feet to paint the walls of this area – some standing, some seated, some using wheelchairs. There were no set ideas for the design, so learners’ choices didn’t need to be guided or restricted (apart from not painting the whole classroom). The result looks great, is functional and very definitely belongs to the students.

At Phase 4, students can be supported to identify an end product and plan how to produce it. As with so many activities, this impacts on most areas of development. Harry, for example, is profoundly deaf and his vision is increasingly restricted; without support, his everyday world would verge on the chaotic. He finds the process of planning and making items hugely satisfying and a source of independent achievement. Recently, with peers, he built a birdtable from a kit, working out the steps needed from an identical finished product. His perseverance and pride in his achievement were fantastic to see, and continued through painting the birdtable with wood stain and choosing where to site it. The value of his work is emphasized by the birds’ appreciation of their regular feeding! Harry and his peers have continued their interest in the project, bringing old bread from home to put on the birdtable and making different kinds of bird food in school.

Art activities offer genuine inclusion for students of all levels and interests, supporting interaction and communication between them. Differing sensory needs can be met and students helped to recognize and enjoy their own achievements whether process - or product-linked. Art and DT sessions provide a store of shared experiences, usually with ready-made artefacts (pictures, sculptures, the cloakroom walls) to stimulate later discussions.

Art also, no less importantly, offers time out from the everyday world – often demanding, confusing, sometimes threatening for our multi-sensory impaired students – and levels the playing field: they are no less creative than anyone else; no less able to express their emotions and ideas through art.

Curriculum area: Social relationships and emotional development

Curriculum area: Ownership of learning