Art plays a valuable role in the school life of all students at Holbrook Academy. We seek to engage, empower and encourage our students to unlock their highest potential as creative independent individuals. The art room is a safe space for students to express themselves, find a sense of wellbeing and see their own value.
Transferable skills taught in Art:
- Problem solving, critical thinking and analytical skills.
- How to form and express opinions.
- Imagination and creativity.
- Observational skills, to help understand the world.
- Visual communication skills.
- Confidence and an awareness of identity.
- Determination, responsibility and resilience.
Key Stage 4 (GCSE)
Students in Key Stage 4 are offered the Edexcel unendorsed GCSE in Art and Design. It’s designed as a general course to incorporate art, craft and design in a variety of disciplines. Including; paint, print, sculpture, mixed media, collage, photography, textiles and drawing.
Work is measured against four Assessment Objectives: Develop, Refine, Record and Present.
Verbal, visual and written guidance and feedback is given regularly.
The Edexcel GCSE in Art and Design consists of two units:
- Unit 1: Personal Portfolio, 60% of the overall mark.
- Unit 2: Externally Set Assignment, 40% of the overall mark. The assignment consists of 20 hours of taught preparation and a 10 hour exam to complete a final piece.
Students will learn how to:
- Effectively analyse artwork.
- Develop their own visual language.
- Use first hand and contextual sources to generate and develop ideas.
- Explore and find inspiration for subject matter, style, techniques and materials.
Submissions for each unit must contain personal responses from the student, with evidence of working in at least two disciplines. Students can produce supporting studies in a variety of means, such as sketchbooks, pages of their portfolio and maquettes, demonstrating their progress as their ideas develop.
Broad concepts and themes are explored across three topics during completion of coursework, some examples are: Organic Mechanic, Force, Fragments, Apart and/or Together.
Throughout the course there is an emphasis on building students’ independence, confidence, and proficiency with materials and techniques, which allows the successful completion of coursework and the External Set Assignment.
If you have any questions about the Art and Design course, please contact the Art department, we are always happy to help.
Key Stage 3
Art at Key Stage 3 is based around four key areas to develop our students’ understanding, skills and enjoyment of Art.
- Generate ideas: Creativity.
- Make: Techniques and Processes.
- Evaluate: Record and Develop.
- Knowledge: Critical, Cultural and Historical Understanding.
Students explore art in projects designed to broadly cover a variety of subjects, materials and techniques. Competence and confidence is encouraged in a range of creative processes. With an emphasis on exploring the formal elements of line, tone, texture, shape, form, space and pattern.
Students are encouraged to explore themes, ideas and imagination in a creative way, producing art works which are personal to their investigations. Home learning projects are influenced by class projects, offering students the opportunity to independently develop their imaginative, creative and investigative skills. Final outcomes, home learning tasks, and other visual research is celebrated on displays around the department and across the school.
Example projects for Key Stage 3
Year 7:
- Hands – Who am I?
- Colour Theory – Foot Print journey
- Patterned Cubes
- The Birds are Coming!
Year 8:
- Textural Text
- Environments
- Beautiful Beetles
- African Pattern
Year 9:
- Pop Art Food
- Me, Myself and I
- Still Life
- Recycled, Reuse, Remake
Wider Reading List Art Wider Reading List