Visual Arts education is fundamental to an effective school curriculum for primary learners.

It

provides learners with opportunities for expression and personal growth, essential to a holistic

education. It is perceived that learners display limited knowledge in the areas of Visual Arts

skills and responses and this is perhaps in part due to a decline in specialist Visual Arts education

in the primary education. In the absence of a specialist, the primary generalist is expected to take

over the facilitation of Visual Arts experiences. Visual Arts exposure primary learners receive is

highly variable. Learners who lack exposure to the subject specific language of Visual Arts often

lack motivation and engagement when in a classroom. It is perceived that rather than treating

Visual Arts as a stand-alone subject with value, it is more often integrated in generalist primary

classroom curriculum to compete with rising pressures associated with literacy and numeracy

testing. This write up is going to discuss how Visual Art can be used in the teaching of other

areas in Visual and Performing Art syllabus. Key terms visual art shall be defined as the essay

unfolds.

Gombrich (2000) define visual arts as all art forms that create works that are primarily visual in

nature, such as ceramics, drawing and architecture. According Hetland (2007) to visual arts are

those creations that we can see rather than something like the auditory arts. Therefore the writer

views Visual Arts as a way to make a living through using own hands in , photography, sculpting

and drawing.

Integrated teaching is one of the ways to put into practice the socio‐constructivist approach to

learning as well as the guided construction of knowledge. Choosing this way of teaching can lead

to interaction among learners, between teacher and learners, and most importantly, between

teachers from different disciplines purports Bowell, I. (2011). This interdisciplinary

communication, sharing and interaction may enable individuals to be socially creative and may

offer them the opportunity to find new connections which would, otherwise, remain unseen.

Integration, while it is important that visual arts be regarded as a subject in its own right, it also

presents new ways of developing skills in many other areas of the curriculum. In particular,

visual arts provides the student with opportunities to develop fine-motor skills and hand-eye co-

ordination, and to develop control of materials, tools and techniques use scissors, brushes,

rollers, glue-sticks stay within the limits of a page squeeze or roll wet and dry clay to control the

amount of glue or paint that he/she applies to a sheet of paper thread painted pasta to make

necklaces. As this implies to science subjects which mostly offer hands on approach where

learners learn by doing most of the times. This integrates well with visual art as it develops fine

motor skills.

Subject integration in visual arts also develop mathematical skills experience and explore colour,

form, shape, space, texture, and pattern identify and follow adult directions to create shapes;

choose and name colours used, or to be used, in activity; follow adult directions in creating

patterns, e.g. printing recognise the need for ‘more’ or ‘less’ in adding water to paste/paint use

one-to-one correspondence and recognise the need for counting distributing brushes and sheets

of paper match materials with their correct locations locating materials/returning materials

during tidy-up copy a sequence of actions develop spatial awareness through making smallscale

and large-scale constructions explore ‘cause and effect’ develop problem-solving skills. Thus

integration with mathematics which deals with numeracy.

In languages, learners also develop communication and language skills respond in a variety

of ways to what he/she sees, hears, smells, touches and feels in another context describe colours
used, materials used, and processes involved use language to make choices and express needs in

relation to materials needed use language to predict outcomes of activities communicate about

work in progress recall past or finished activities, using sequencing skills (first, next, then) use

language to communicate ideas, likes, and dislikes. Hence learners become confident of their

work.

In heritage social studies, visual arts play an important role in developing social skills by

being provided with new contexts in which they work individually and collaboratively wait for

his/her turn when materials are being distributed, take responsibility for distributing tools and

materials share materials indicate own needs in relation to materials, show sensitivity to the

needs of others, show others how to do tasks seek adult help, appropriately and as necessary

initiate activities suggest solutions to problems recognise the start and finish of activities respond

to requests to tidy up, take responsibility for tidying up show pleasure and interest in tasks, give

and receive compliments, value and assess their own and others’ achievements, identify own

work, admire class displays. Learners also develop ICT skills in a computer subject thus

accessing art programs on the computer, using the conventional mouse or other devices;

rollerballs, touch-screens, concept keyboards.

Conclusively, visual art subject suggests that social interaction and sharing of knowledge appear

to be an important basis for integrative teaching and learning. The integrated presentation of

teaching material enhances learnrs’ learning abilities to make associative connections between

different subjects, to transfer their skills (Riding et al. 1995) from one subject into another, and

to apply their knowledge from one subject area to another by processing various sources of

visual or verbal information in the visual arts.

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Bowell, I. (2011). Supporting visual art teaching in primary schools. Australian Art Education,

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Catterall, J.S. (2009). Doing Well and Doing Good by Doing Art: A 12-Year National Study of

Education in the Visual and Performing Arts. Los Angeles, Ca: Imagination Group/I-

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Efland, A. (2002). Efland on art education: A postmodern view. Arts Education Policy Review,

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Garvis, S., & Pendergast, D. (2010). Supporting novice teachers of the arts. International Journal

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