The art and design faculty is housed in a suite of excellent spacious rooms. Our staff offer a variety of specialisams that are delivered into our curriculum. We have a full time technician who works within the classroom and offers specialist advice and preparation skills.
Aims
We strive to improve standards and raise achievement. Our departmental aim is to offer a KS3 and KS4 curriculum, which allows all pupils the opportunity to learn. The art education we offer challenges pupils as well as introduce them to new art forms, materials and techniques. We recognise that our pupils thoroughly enjoy our subject; therefore our teaching is inclusive and insightful. We offer pupils opportunities to exhibit and work with artists.
What will I study?
We take enormous pride in our resources, and updating them is ongoing. We hope our curriculum reflects all aspects of Art and Design and offer the following disciplines:
Media Lab/ICT, 3D Sculpture, Fine Art and Painting, Printmaking/Relief/Intaglio,
Ceramics, Installation work, Animation/digital and image manipulation.
We are currently taking our KS4 curriculum forward and putting lots of issue-based themes forward to the pupils. We learn every year that pupils are very aware of what goes on around them and often use it as a source of inspiration. Introducing pupils to a range of diverse art forms we feel impacts upon their learning and provides all pupils with positive learning experiences. Pupils are exposed to traditional art forms as well as contemporary media pieces. We are lucky to have 2 ICT classrooms, which allow us to use ICT as an invaluable tool.
All pupils enjoy their experiences of the aforementioned listed disciplines and show clearly they are confident in a wide variety of materials and processes.
How will I study?
We continuously encourage independent learning. We promote discussion and questioning within our classrooms. Critical skills draw out opinions of artwork and allow us to expose the much-valued opinions of our pupils. We offer lots of one-to-one help and demonstrations to encourage our pupils to succeed.
Pupils are also expected to analyse their own work. We place a lot of emphasis upon evaluation, not only as a group, but also as an individual.
How will I be monitored and assessed?
Pupils are carefully monitored throughout their school career and are given regular targets.
Pupils are assessed at the end of a project. We currently study three projects a year at KS3 and up to four at KS4. Pupils are given a whole year level. We apply levels to bodies of work and not to individual pieces. We follow the same procedures as the rest of the school, and monitor our pupils’ books carefully throughout the year.
What will happen in KS4?
When pupils opt for our subject we are, as a department, very keen to build upon essential skills already familiar to our pupils. Pupils will already have many of the skills essential for GCSE and are encouraged to work independently as the course progresses. Pupils produce up to 6 projects throughout the course, or may just focus upon 2. All our pupils complete a controlled test in Year 11. By the time they reach Year 11, they have progressed to working on a variety of mature projects.
Year 9
We have an acceleration area where by pupils in year 9 begin their GCSE a year earlier. Year 9’s have their own space to develop their work.
Creative Media Diploma
The art and design department is beginning the Creative Media Diploma. We have received excellent funding and support to develop the new pathway of learning. The art department is looking forward to working with new partnerships, and importantly giving pupils the opportunities to experience the creative industry.