Year 7
Full year project
The Animal Kingdom.
This project acts as an introduction to the formal elements of art and design and allows students to enhance or compound knowledge learnt at Key stage 2. Students will be led through a series of activities which focus on drawing skills and the application of texture, tone and colour. This project then develops and extends into an exploration of how we can create patterns using shapes via collage, decorative pen work and printmaking techniques. Students will look at a variety of cultural patterns including those from South Asia and Africa for inspiration and create several of their own designs throughout the project. As they come to the end of the year students will work on a collaborative image in their class groups.
Year 8
Full year project: Myself
Students will complete a project based on themselves. The project runs over the whole year and encourages students to explore how their personalities and emotions can be portrayed using imagery and colour. Skills taught will include drawing, collage, photography and painting. Art historical work will focus on three main artists; Teesha Moore, David Hockney and Pablo Picasso.
Year 9
Full year project: The World around me
This project focuses on many aspects of the World around us, including; architecture, nature, political issues and environmental issues. Students will experiment with photography, paint, clay and stencil printing to respond to the work of artists including Sarah Morris, Andy Goldsworthy and Banksy. Students will have the opportunity to discuss installation art and to work in groups to create a fashion item from paper and other recyclable materials.
Assessment at Key stage 3
Each project includes key pieces of work which will be assessed. These pieces are created by the students after a series of lessons focusing on developing the necessary skills to execute the work successfully. The students will receive teacher feedback for this piece of work and a target for development. They will also receive a mark in one of the following boxes on their assessment sheet; Developing, Secure, Mastered depending on how well they have completed the task.These results will be shared with the students on a personal assessment sheet in their sketchbooks on which they can track their progress.
The majority of feedback in art and design is done verbally during lessons, however, books will also be marked regularly. Positive points will be added on the whole school system, Class Charts, for excellent effort or achievement.
How can parents help support their child’s learning?
Encouraging your daughter to draw, photograph and collect relevant imagery as projects progress will help her to improve her observational skills. Fostering a love of learning about art by visiting local galleries or taking part in community workshops is a great way of accessing art outside of school. Being able to select information from the internet is also important and is something that may need reinforcing at home if you notice pages and pages of information being printed or copied as homework (students are generally only asked for a fact-file of bullet points or 1 – 2 paragraphs)Students may be asked to research artwork at home, there are hundreds of websites available but websites we have found useful in the past to find a range of imagery include; Google images Pinterest Art2Day Lens culture
Enrichment opportunities
Extra-curricular clubs are offered by the art and design department at different points throughout the year. We aim to provide access to materials and techniques that are not taught in class so that students can try an even broader range of art and design disciplines. Extra-curricular clubs running this academic year include; Jewellery making, sewing, clay sculpting, Illustration and typography
