In the Art & Design department at Glyn, we aim for our students to become confident, critical, and creative. Students take pride in their learning and perpetuate a studio culture founded on respect for all. They are excited by different materials as well as artists from different backgrounds, whilst their increasingly technical skills help them to develop their individual ideas and voices. We aim for our students to share the belief that Art & Design is a uniquely powerful subject, representing creative practices that shape our shared world.
| Head of Art | Mr J Braybrook | J.Braybrook@glynschool.org |
Why study this subject?
The aim of the course is to provide a breadth of creative experiences, using a wide range of media, allowing the students to develop a high level of skill in the areas which interest them.
Art & Design is a subject in which students start to observe and understand the world around them. It is a challenging and enormously varied course which seeks to develop students’ skills across a range of different media including drawing, painting, photography, Photoshop, printing, collage, and clay.
Year 7 sequence of lessons
Half Term 1 - Foundation Skills
An essential and basic introduction to explicit Art lessons given many students arrive at KS3 having only undertaken Art activities at Primary School through ‘topics’.
Includes: use of a sketchbook, safe practise in the Art rooms, observation from life using tone, proportion using a grid, creating visual texture through pattern and mark-making.
Topic Summary
Students develop skills in proportion and shading techniques learning about Albrecht Dürer.
Half Term 2 - Foundation Skills
One and two-point perspective to progress understanding from single forms to the relationships between forms in space. Students will look at how perspective is created internally and externally. Students will learn about linear and aerial perspective. The effects of light and colour in works of art and learn about the colour wheel.
Topic Summary
Students develop an understanding of how to create space using methods of perspective.
Half Term 3 and 4 - Painting Skills
Having acquired basic knowledge in monochromatic materials, students learn about marketing, forming a pamphlet for an Impressionist exhibition. This allows students to develop their literacy skills evaluating works of art and developing their research skills from different sources. The developed understanding of the Impressionist period is then used as a vehicle to understanding optical blending in Impressionist painting. Students will study works by Monet and form a work of their own using watercolours. This sometimes builds on artists explored at primary level and links to the NC’s ‘great artists’.
Students progress from learning about an Impressionist use of colour to an Expressionist use of colour and handling of paint creating a floral painting.
Topic Summary
Students develop their painting and design skills making a pamphlet and learning about the application of Impressionist techniques
Half Term 5 - Design and Illustration Skills
Having seen how Impressionist and Expressionists artists negotiate landscape, students now learn about Henri Rousseau. Students consider again the importance of a sketchbook, linking back to HT1 as their first year is drawing to a close. Students take inspiration from artworks considered thus far and design their own personal ideas for a landscape including a foreground, middleground, and background. This introduces composition of elements in a scene.
Half Term 6 - Design and Illustration Skills
Students are exposed to book illustration. The half term concludes with a personal, ‘final’ outcome for a book cover and combines lettering with an image. This starts to show art in the commercial world as a career.
Topic Summary
Students develop skills in composition, and develop a book jacket for the theme 'Out of the Mist'.
Year 8 sequence of lessons
Half Term 1 - Project Planet Earth
The first truly thematic project which extends beyond just skills and requires a thematic consideration similar to GCSE level projects. Includes: developing drawing from observation but this time on a tonal surface to refine application of highlights and lowlights, stylised drawing techniques which are then taken through into a monoprint to expose students further to new materials and processes.
Half Term 2 - Project Planet Earth
Monoprint is used as a trace for an outcome on another tonal surface: cardboard. Students then work to produce an outcome in acrylics for the first time, working in a limited colour palette to refine use of tone. Work is contextualised with research into artists who engage with social issues such as the environment - explicit links made to Geography.
Half Term 3 - Project Planet Earth
Students extend their understanding of the design process by using their stylised drawings and prints as a starting point for the design of a clay tile.
Students work with clay for the first time, learning basic techniques and processes which culminate in a finished tile before the February half term.
Half Term 4 - Romanticism & Mood
This project begins with a focus on the NC's ‘great artists’ from the Romantic era and students gain an understanding of how art interacts with literature, religion, and how art can tell stories.
This half term focuses on figures in proportion and students learn the proportional relationships within a figure. We look at how figures can be used dramatically, looking at the work of Delacroix, and how emotion and movement can be conveyed. Students look at figures in motion, Duchamp's ‘Nude descending the staircase’ as well as other artists. More able students might abstract their work.
Half Term 5 - Romanticism & Mood
This half term focuses on mythological creatures and allows students more time on developing work and creativity. We look at artists such as William Blake and Goya and students create their own mythological creature and use paint or other media so analysing space but also providing students the chance this year to refine mark making techniques, use of colour and aerial perspective which they learnt in Year 7.
Half Term 6 - Nature
This last term focuses on the development of students' use of media to form a creative final piece. The aim is to ensure the skills and learning in the earlier part of Year 8 is utilised, enabling students to form a final piece which draws upon cultural influences of Japanese and Aboriginal art. Students form drawings of natural forms, cut these out and arrange them on a collaged background created by Frottage (rubbings), newspaper and other neutral papers. Spaces are filled with patterned dots from Aboriginal art.
Topic Summary
Students learn more about nature and look at Aboriginal and Japanese art creating a collage using techniques learnt during the year.
Year 9 sequence of lessons
The aim of Year 9 is to ensure students consolidate their previous learning by making more refined works and also looking at a broader range of career options in art.
Half Term 1 - Still Life
Students develop drawing skills such as composition and use of tone.
Topic Summary
Students develop their drawing skills further through use of observation.
Half Term 2 - Three Dimensional Ceramics
Students develop their ceramic skills learnt in Year 8 but now are able to consider natural forms in our world.
Topic Summary
Students develop their ceramic skills further and the exploration of space and texture making a natural small clay sculpture.
Half Term 3 - Film and story boards
Students will develop a greater awareness of the range of careers available and learn about how to make a story and the process of sequencing in developing ideas.
Topic Summary
Students develop knowledge of the construction of films through the use of storyboarding.
Half Term 4 - Architecture
Students will learn about architecture and construct a building of their choice using paper and drawing techniques.
Topic Summary
Students will learn about different forms of architectural styles and make a building facade of their own in paper
Half Term 5 and 6
Students will develop their media skills further focusing on natural forms.
Topic Summary
Students will develop their media skills further. The aim is to consolidate previous learning exploring the natural world.
Is this course right for me at Key Stage 4
Art is perfect for young artists who have felt confident throughout their Key Stage 3 lessons, have strong and secure drawing skills and are ready to take the next exciting step.
As well as developing practical skills, students will learn how to analyse their own work and that of other artists alongside the continuous refinement of their own creative ideas and personal, practical outcomes. It is important, therefore, to note that alongside high quality practical work marks can be derived from written analysis.
Year 10 sequence of lessons
Half Term 1 - Natural Forms/Altered Nature project
Students develop their creativity through the exploration and application of different materials and form a mini project on Nature. Activities recap on tonal and proportional drawing. Students are also introduced to using Google functions and digital photography as well as using a wide spectrum of materials to cement experiences.
- Natural Forms / Altered Nature: Observation
The theme of “Natural Forms/Altered Nature” is chosen because of the prolific source material and draws on the students' world around them making them more aware of their environment. This half term allows students to develop their project through the study of artists' works so forming a direction of their own.
Project begins with a moodboard to gather ideas, photography to demonstrate use of techniques, and observational drawing to build confidence and develop successful conclusions.
Half Term 2 - Natural Forms / Altered Nature: Exploration
Students begin the ‘exploration’ phase, broadening their use of materials and processes and develop their ideas.
Half Term 3 - Natural Forms / Altered Nature: Exploration
Having completed a range of their own investigation and exploration, students then move on to working with clay developing their ideas further and exploring further media.
Half Term 4 - Natural Forms / Altered Nature: Concept Development
Students return to observational drawing with a particular focus on creating form and three-dimensionality. Students use this developed understanding to begin to create initial ideas for an outcome which will be 3D and made in clay or other chosen materials.
- Natural Forms / Altered Nature: Concept Refinement
Students create a range of personal concept pages as part of the design process. These link back to previous observations and artworks studied.
- Natural Forms / Altered Nature: Final Yr 10 PPE
Students create their best concept in clay, developing from two-dimensional skills to three-dimensional skills. This concludes the first mini project.
Topic Summary
This topic develops students understanding of nature through exploration of different techniques.
Half Term 5 - Identity: Observation
Students begin the theme of Identity. This project is designed to be more personal to promote independence so that students are ready for their ESA project.
It begins with observational drawing of portraits to refine skills in drawing and photography.
Half Term 6 - Identity: Understanding
Students select and research suitable artists to develop their own ideas and understanding. A template from the first project is used to students can work effectively but independently.
Year 11 sequence of lessons
Half Term 1 - Identity: Exploration
Students begin the ‘exploration’ phase selecting their own materials, techniques and processes they may include. Students work entirely independently, guided by personalised feedback and group crits.
Half Term 2 - Identity: Presenting
- Coursework Improvement
Students begin their ‘concepts’ for their final outcomes. Students work entirely independently, guided by personalised feedback and group crits.
- Identity: Presenting Final Year 11 PPE
Students finalise their 'Final Outcomes' for the Identity Project. This encompasses student choice as well as a high level of independence and individualised feedback at the point in the NEA course where they are most skilled.
Topic Summary
Students develop an understanding of one of the concepts of Identity looking at family relationships, self-portraiture, self-reflection, age, expression and distortion.
1:1 Feedback and expert modelling enables students to make targeted improvements to their NEA Coursework. This continual development is supplemented with out of hours intervention.
Half Term 3, 4 and 5 - Externally Set Assignment
Students complete the ESA which is their ‘Exam Project’. This project is issued by the Exam Board and teachers and students are blind to it before January. It contains 7 thematic starting points. Students independently choose 1 which suits their artists abilities and style, and creates a project in response.
Now familiar with the structure and methods of making a great art project, students perform with independence. The teacher is therefore more able to take on a role as a facilitator and leader of group crits.
The deadlines for the ESA are very tight and students will be expected to produce a high volume of work each week.
The NEA, and indeed the GCSE course, culminates with a ‘period of sustained focus’ during which students make a 'Final Piece' relating to their ESA project. This period takes place over 2 days in the Art room and is in exam conditions.
After this, the course is complete and the remaining few lessons before Study Leave are used for revision of other subjects or targeted intervention.
How is this course assessed at GCSE?
- Component 1: Portfolio - This is made up of the two first projects and is worth 60% of the final grade.
- Component 2: Externally Set Assignment - This is the third project and is set by the exam board. Students have eight weeks to make their own project, followed by a 10 hour examination, sat under exam conditions, in the art rooms, over two days. The externally set assignment, is worth 40% of the final grade.
Further Education Opportunities after GCSE?
Art can lead to A Levels in Fine Art, Product Design and Photography. It can also support BTEC qualifications in a variety of creative subjects and apprenticeships.
Year 12 Fine Art sequence of lessons
Half Term 1
Students will broadly start to investigate their selected Personal Investigation (theme) looking at mind maps and artists that will broaden their thoughts about their theme. The Personal Investigation has been brought forward to enable students to have time to show a greater degree of depth and quality of investigation early on in the course.
Half Term 2
Students will develop through observation and further investigation their theme and respond to artists' work starting to show a degree of individuality in their investigation. This allows students to develop their own work which is supported by artists and contextual references, enriching the quality of investigation yet allowing the student to start to show independence.
Half Term 3
Students will continue to develop their range of ideas experimenting with materials but developing their concept towards more refined larger scale ideas which start to consider the scale and possibilities the student still has to form their NEA final piece.
Half Term 4
Students will develop ideas and take into account the direction they want their work to analyse.
Half Term 5
Students will continue to develop their range of ideas experimenting with materials but developing their concept towards more refined larger scale ideas which starts to consider the scale and possibilities the student still has to form their NEA final piece.
Half Term 6
Students will start their investigation for their Personal Study after further teacher directed guidance. This half term assists students in resolving their ideas forming a skilled original artwork informed by artists. Students Personal study will relate to their practical work but will assist the student in forming a very clear directed path which will be developed through further studies and investigation in Year 13.
Why we sequence the scheme this way
This still allows for students to experience using and experimentation with different media. It also allows students to show in their portfolio a broader range of investigation, forming more sketchbooks and research for their personal investigation. Students will investigate the potential ways of portraying their final concept. They will make further explorations of media, composition, colour through pages in their sketchbook and larger scaled works which will help and support their final piece made at the end of this term.
Development of the Personal Study now starts to allow students to form a more directed thematic response to a chosen theme of their choice. This should now be more personalised and original in thinking. The breaking down of the Personal Study across three half terms allows the student to develop their use of language and terminology forming a strong dissertation which assists and runs alongside their coursework.
Year 13 Fine Art sequence of lessons
Half Term 1
Students will develop their Personal Investigation further exploring and refining options available to them which will start to lead to a considered final concept.
They will develop their Personal Study/dissertation which will focus on a specific aspect of their practical work and form a first draft.
Half Term 2
Students will investigate the potential ways of portraying their final NEA concept. They will make further explorations of media, composition, colour through pages in their sketchbook and larger scaled works which will help and support their final piece made at the end of this term.
Students will complete a second draft of their Personal Study after further teacher directed guidance. This half term assists students in resolving their ideas forming a skilled original artwork.
Half Term 3
Students will continue to develop more defined explorations towards their final idea. Work will be directed specifically to their final NEA theme which will be completed at the end of the Autumn term. Students will reflect on their practical work and finish the Personal Study.
Half Term 4
Students will start their External set assignment and start to form investigations referring to artists and craftspeople to influence their initial ideas.
Half Term 5
Students will start to consolidate their ideas forming more of a directed set of work using appropriate media to assist them in direction to their final exam piece.
Half Term 6
Students will refine ideas and work out potential compositions for their final, their application of materials and use of colour. Students will reflect on their work in response to the exam question.
Why we sequence the scheme this way
Students by now have a specific direction to their Personal Investigation and as such can start to develop their form for their Personal Study so that it integrates with their practical coursework.
Career Opportunities?
Art is important for anyone who is aiming for a career in Art and Design, Fine Art, Graphics, Textiles and Fashion Design, Photography, Architecture and Three-dimensional Design.
