Art and Design
KS3
Subject Statement
The Art department works to enable Key Stage 3 students to build self-confidence and self-esteem through their engagement in a wide range of art activities, which will enable them to make things they are proud of. Students are encouraged to work collaboratively as well as individually, and have the opportunity to learn important skills and techniques in order for their work to be successful. Often challenging, always individual, the wide range of impressive artwork our students produce reflects the ambitious creativity we try hard to nurture here.
Course Outline
Students gain experience in using a variety of media, including painting, printing, sculpture and ceramics, and they also learn about the work of other artists and use this knowledge to help inform their work. They often work with a theme in mind, while learning new skills in order to develop their ideas related to the theme. The department is well resourced, so we are able to make a wide range of outcomes.
How Parents and Carers can Help
Encourage your child to talk about their Art lessons at school and discuss your own personal experiences of art together. Take up any opportunities to visit galleries and museums to broaden your child’s understanding of art. There are frequently documentaries on artists or art history on television these days and sometimes these can be quite surprising, as artists often live quite interesting lives. If your child works on any art at home, or brings home anything they have done at school, please celebrate their effort and achievements.
Contact
Head Creative and Arts and PE
Andy Joseph - andy.joseph@prus.newham.sch.uk
Links to online resources
www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-curriculum-in-england-art-and-design-programmes-of-study
Assessment and Feedback Information
Students are given a lot of individual help and feedback on their work, enabling them to explore more personal ways forward with their own ideas. Pupils are also encouraged to talk about their work and to comment on the work of their classmates. Each project is assessed against a set of key skills and knowledge that is appropriate to each of the class activities, following National Curriculum guidelines. Examples of projects includes; Ceramics, Abstract Art, Sculpture, 'Drawing, printing, painting'.
KS4 GCSE / BTEC / Arts Award
General Course Information
All students take Art as a GCSE, beginning in year 10. The AQA course we follow provides the opportunity for students to be ambitious and imaginative, and to experiment with materials they may have not used before. It helps students to broaden their knowledge of art and art-related issues and to make their own, personal, individual outcomes in response to this. Students who arrive at Tunmarsh without having done Art at school for some time previously, or who might join us late in key stage 4, may not have enough time to complete a full GCSE course. We therefore also provide an alternative Trinity College Bronze Arts Award, which gives recognition and certification for the Art work they do when they are with us. We also offer a BTEC Level Award in Art and Design as an alternative route for some pupils. The course provides clear progression routes, providing opportunities to develop their education further or to gain employment.
Assessment and Feedback
The AQA GCSE course has two compulsory components - 60% of the total grade is Coursework, 40% is a Set Task.
To get started with their Coursework students will initially work on a series of workshop-based activities, which aim to build up self-confidence quickly, as the activities are designed to virtually guarantee impressive outcomes. Students then pick from a selection of themes and base their work in interpreting their chosen theme. They look at the work of other artists, make sketchbooks and scrap books, and experiment with different materials, gaining skills along the way and building up a coursework portfolio that reflects their individuality and their own personal interpretation of the theme they chose.
Students work on the Set Task from January of year 11. This is similar in structure to the work that has been done so far, but 7 themes are provided by AQA for the students to choose to work from. At the end of this project there is a compulsory 10 hour exam session, which we split over four days, where students complete their Set Task project.
The Bronze Arts Award Certificate is a shorter course than the GCSE, and is divided into four compulsory tasks. These four activities include exploring the arts as an artist, research into a favourite arts practitioner, teaching peers how to do an arts related skill, and participating in an arts-related activity as an audience member. The Bronze Award course is broader than the GCSE in that it is more research based and does not require students to spend such a long time on practical activities.
BTEC pupils will have to produce a portfolio to show all the different art techniques they practiced throughout the course. They will show their artistic response by recreating work from various artists, such as Van Gogh, Picasso, Chagall and contemporary artists' original artworks. The portfolio will contain all their written tasks as well, such as research pages on artists' style and their opinion on artists and artworks. It will demonstrate their first hand observations, photos of their progression, and their own self-assessment. Pupils will have to produce a final art piece demonstrating the evidence of meeting the assessment criteria, from the Edexcel exam board, along with a portfolio of work collated.
How Parents and Carers can Help
Take up any opportunities to participate in any arts-related activity – theatre, concert, visit to a museum or a gallery – and talk about favourite artists, musicians, films, books or performers as a family. This encourages students to broaden their experience of the arts and to think of themselves as possible practitioners or producers of art as well. If they bring work home to work on try to provide an environment that makes this easy for them to focus, as well as praise and encouragement for their efforts. Celebrate the work if they bring it home too. Talk about the themes students might be working on in art, as this might provide opportunities for them to consider issues and ideas they might not have come up with on their own.
Contact
Head of Creative Arts and PE
Andy Joseph - andy.joseph@prus.newham.sch.uk