Curriculum
Art & Design
Intent
To develop patient and passionate young artists that are brave enough to take creative risks, demonstrating critical awareness through their personal, social and cultural identity.
Enacting the Vision
Students are taught:
- How to use a range of techniques to record observations using sketchbooks as a tool for encouraging a personal and creative visual journey.
- To focus on improving drawing skills at every opportunity, by using materials and techniques that allow students to become expressive and work in a natural, highly creative, process driven manner.
- To develop confidence in using techniques which allow students to achieve accuracy and confidence in drawing.
- To increase their handling of different materials, techniques and processes including, drawing, painting, printmaking, and 3-D.
- To produce a range of work that is experimental, developmental and achieves high quality outcomes and confident practitioners.
- To learn about the history of Art, Craft and Design including different periods, styles, and movements from ancient times up to the present day, including and encouraging the referencing of ‘contemporary’ artists/designers that are currently practicing and are using notions and narratives that could encourage the expression of individuality and celebration of social and cultural perspectives and identity.
- To become confident in talking about their own practice and the practice of others.
- To consistently recognise that self-evaluation and mistake making is an integral part of the artistic and creative process. As Bob Ross likes to say ‘there are no mistakes only happy accidents.
Year 7
In Year 7 students will learn basic drawing skills and the elements of Art and Design through the themes of Sweet Things, Quentin Blake and portraiture.
Year 8
In Year 8 students will build on their knowledge from Year 7 through the themes of Bugs and Insects, Day of the Dead and an introduction to 3D with Giacometti and Anthony Gormley sculptures.
Year 9
In Year 9 students will continue to develop their formal art skills through the themes of Architecture, Macabre and Gothic and experience a GCSE taster.
Year 10 (GCSE – Year 1)
In Year 10 students work through workshops focused on the formal elements of drawing, painting, print making, creating a personal response and becoming independently creative.
Year 11 (GCSE – Year 2)
In Year 11, personal portfolio development accounts for 60% of the GCSE grade and therefore forms the main focus of study.
Year 12
(A3 hardback wring-bound sketchbooks) and creating work outside of the sketchbook (encouraging working at differing scales). In Year 12 students have embarked upon the first year of their AQA Art and Design A-Level course. Throughout this year they will continue to develop highly individual and unique artistic responses to their chosen.
Year 13
In Year 13 students have embarked upon their final year of their AQA Art and Design A-Level course. They are continuing to develop their highly individual ‘Personal Investigation’ projects. This is normally considered as ‘Component 1’ which contains a written piece of continuous prose of 3000 words that should relate directly to students’ ongoing practice as young artists/designers/craftspersons.
Following this, students will embark upon ‘Component 2, the externally set exam’ - in February.
Careers in Art
https://theartcareerproject.com/careers/