Art
“That which is done with love, is done well.” – Vincent Van Gogh
As a Specialist Arts College, awarded Gold three consecutive times by the Arts Council, we are very proud of our Art and Design department. Driven by our school ethos and values our department has continued to grow and is an increasingly popular subject in the school. As a department, we aim to provide opportunities for students to achieve their full creative potential and make individual progress by exploring a wide range of Art that is valuable, interesting and relevant to the world around us. At Blessed William Howard Catholic School our Art education is much more than learning how to draw, we enable students to explore and understand the society we live in as well as embrace their own feelings and creative ideas. Students foster a love of learning and produce artwork that is individual, creative and innovative.
Subject staff
Miss J Capewell - Curriculum Leader
Miss A Matthews
Miss A Robinson
Mrs E Baker
Mr K Cornwall - Technician
Curriculum Overview
Throughout years 7 and 8, students will be given various learning opportunities and challenges to develop creative and artistic solutions allowing our pupils to develop the fundamental skills needed for Art and Design. This includes access to a wide range of different resources and mediums for experimenting with and producing different types of Art.
Once students are accepted onto our GCSE course they are welcomed into the department with a number of introductory workshops allowing students to experience traditional and non-traditional ways of making Art. Our new GCSE Art students also take part in a number of careers seminars lead by industry professional and existing local artists encouraging students to aspire towards a creative career path.
Throughout the course of year 9, our Art students follow an introductory project aimed to introduce them to working in sketchbooks and producing high quality outcomes. Students study a number of investigatory projects biased on real world events, this includes looking into Art history, political art and emotive imagery. Students are taught how to read and understand messages communicated through art as well as study great artists both past and present.
As we move into year 10 and 11 students follow the AQA Specification in Art, Craft and Design. During this course students are guided through the syllabus by highly trained teaching staff, they are encouraged to work in a range of methods, techniques and realise their own ideas producing quality outcomes.
Extra-curricular
We organise visits to galleries, museums and exhibitions so that students can gain inspiration and ideas for their own work. Visits have included Tate Modern London, The British museum, The National Gallery and the Birmingham Hippodrome. Y9 student are taken to Chester Zoo as part of their NEA coursework.
