Art
“Creativity Takes Courage"
- Henri Matisse
Curriculum Vision
The Art curriculum allows for pupils to develop their own visual language with freedom and creativity by being confident, inquisitive and independent thinkers. Pupils steadily build their skills and knowledge across the key stages whilst thoroughly enjoying their learning without trepidation or fear of making mistakes. Pupils will experience art inside and outside of the classroom and develop a broad understanding of the potential career paths available to them. Pupils will appreciate/experience the historical and cultural aspects of both the work they create and the work of others.
Art plays an important role in ensuring that creativity is at the heart of our school curriculum.
Key Stage 3
At KS3 we give the pupils a firm foundation in the basic skills of drawing, painting, colour, mixed media and contextual artist investigations developing the core skills and elements of an artist. This not only provides a rich and exciting curriculum, but successfully raises their aspirations and cultural appreciation of the subject.
The department encourages pupils at KS3 to become involved in a series of extra-curricular art clubs.
Key Stage 4
At Heathcote pupils study the Edexcel (Pearson) course.
In the GCSE Art & Design course, pupils will have the opportunity to work in both two and three dimensions, exploring a wide variety of media. In addition, through the use of a diverse selection of visual sources, pupils will be encouraged to explore ideas imaginatively. Research on different artists and designers and experimentation with different media will be a source of inspiration to pupils enabling them to produce creative pieces of art work.
The GCSE Art & Design exam board is Edexcel and the course is made up of two components listed below. Pupils explore various themes and create various outcomes using different materials and techniques including drawing, clay sculpture, lino printing, mixed media and painting. Throughout the course pupils will also be working in a sketchbook developing ideas, analysing artists practising techniques, demonstrating drawing and designing.
- Pupils will develop and explore ideas
- Pupils will research primary and contextual sources
- Pupils will experiment with media, materials, techniques
- Pupils will processes & present personal response(s) to theme(s) set.
At the end of the year pupils will create one of the outcomes during a 10 hour exam period spread across two days. pupils have 10 school weeks to prepare for the 10 hour external exam.
Pupils will choose the direction of the assignment and medium they wish to use. Sketchbooks are still important and evidence their ability to develop ideas, analyse artists, experiment with materials, demonstrate drawing ability and design their exam piece.
The assessed components are:
Component 1 – Personal Portfolio
60% of the qualification
72 marks (18 marks for each of the four Assessment Objectives)
Content overview
Pupils create a personal portfolio of work that demonstrates the knowledge, understanding and skills of the AO. This will be formed from the following projects:
Year 10: Artists Project
Year 11: Personal Project
Component 2 – Externally Set Assignment
40% of the qualification
72 marks (18 marks for each of the four Assessment Objectives)
Content overview
Pupils must continue to work to the same criteria as they did for the Personal Portfolio. The ESA is split into 2 sections
Preparatory Studies: Will comprise a portfolio of development work based on the ESA broad-based thematic starting point. These studies will form the basis of most of the pupil’s marks.
Timed Exam: 10-hour Sustained Focus Period (2 days): Under examination conditions, pupils will work unaided to produce personal response(s), with reference to their preparatory studies, in response to the ESA broad-based thematic starting point.
