Art and its many disciplines promote visual literacy. Visual literacy enables us to comprehend and communicate in the image saturated world around us.
The UNESCO Universal Declaration of Human Rights states ‘Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits.’
Art is the expression of human creativity and can be emotionally, intellectually and politically challenging. Design links creativity and innovation, shaping ideas to become practical and attractive creative outcomes for users and clients. Art and design is therefore uniquely placed to equip students with the skills needed to participate and contribute in a visually literate society.
Everything around us is created and designed; from the chair you are sitting on, the interiors and buildings surrounding you, the clothes you are wearing, the apps on your phone and the film you watch tonight. Art and Design leads to a vast variety of career options within the creative, cultural, heritage and digital industries. Art develops lifelong transferable skills that are applicable everywhere, from home and leisure to work. Government figures show the country’s creative industries contributed £111.7 billion to the UK in 2018, equivalent to £306 million every day. This figure is growing as we prepare students for creative jobs which are yet to be invented.
As a department we are actively anti-racist. With the support of NSEAD and their Anti-Racist Art Education Action Group (ARAEA) we have and continue to critically review and revise our publications and resources with the aim to make our subject actively anti-racist.
Ethnically diverse communities are significantly under-represented in the creative industries as; professional artists, designers, craftspeople and educators and they are subject to racism. The actions and in-actions that have been taken by the education system to date have therefore been inherently racist. We are active in doing the work to make change. We acknowledge that we will at times make mistakes and therefore our curriculum will be under constant review.
At KS3, students begin a scheme of learning sequentially planned to build upon skills to prepare them for KS4. The curriculum allows for key skills, knowledge and techniques to be revisited over the three years in a variety of ways, to build upon what has been learnt and to ensure this is embedded for all learners.
Key Stage 4:
At KS4, students are able to organise
and develop ideas relevant to a given theme and their own intentions.
They are able to respond to artist inspirations by developing and
experimenting with their own ideas to produce skilful final outcomes.
Qualification: GCSE Exam Board: AQA
At KS5, students build upon skills
they have learnt at KS4. With a larger amount of time allocated to their
studies, students develop a greater sense of self within their art and
photography exploring themselves emotionally, intellectually and
politically.
The A Level has been designed to
provide engaging and innovative creative learning experiences, where art
and photography is meaningfully integrated with theoretical knowledge
and understanding. Learners are given opportunities to develop a broad
foundation of critical, practical and theoretical skills. Overall, the
course fosters a holistic understanding of a range of practices and
contexts across visual arts, crafts and design fields, culminating in
greater specialism and achievement.
Qualification: GCSE Exam Board: AQA
Supporting Documents
