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Art

Introduction

With creative qualifications offering a vast range of transferable skills, Art and Design is highly valued by employers across different industries. At Stratford Girls’ Grammar School our passion is to offer an exciting and enriching Art curriculum across all key stages, linking our Schemes of Learning where possible to career paths, industries and core skills. Our diverse programme is led by Ms Hillier, who brings a strong background in the arts, prior to teaching, in the field of Fine Art Conservation and Restoration, working with leading art galleries, in addition to a background in media and advertising. Both teachers in the department are practising art specialists and encourage students to find their creative strengths by working across several disciplines from drawing and painting to printmaking, textiles, 3D design, sculpture, photography and film. We are proud to offer students trips to leading galleries in the UK and abroad, as well as unique access to professional artists and inspiring activities such as life drawing.

Key Stage 3 Curriculum:

At Key Stage 3, we are passionate about creating the right environment to encourage personal expression, enabling all students to feel able to take creative risks and to communicate their ideas, without fear of failure. We provide an inspiring and supportive environment for learning, encouraging students to experiment and explore their creative potential. We also raise awareness of cultural issues, exploring empathy, diversity and inclusion.

Year 7

Term 1 introduces students to the formal elements with a foundation unit investigating line, form, shape, shade and tone and mark-making.

By Term 2, students will begin undertaking more advanced drawing skills, investigating pattern and printmaking in detail, digital manipulation and printmaking with a project exploring the world of interior design. Students engage with the Arts & Craft Movement, investigating the work of William Morris and contemporary design duo Timorous Beasties, to create their own bespoke wallpaper pattern or lampshade design.

Term 3 introduces students to a sculpture unit where they make their own Gothic inspired characters, influenced by Gothic Art and Architecture, and an understanding of how these styles can be found in the work of contemporary filmmaker and illustrator Tim Burton.

Year 8

Term 1 begins with an introduction to colour theory, colour mixing, control, building up layers, using shade, tone, saturation, pigments and hues. Students explore the food industry and use skills to investigate the contemporary style of food illustration, or use food as subject matter to produce an abstract painting.

Term 2 explores technical drawing skills and architecture, including a 2D project on understanding perspective and producing a cityscape. Students also explore the world of set design through an Alice in Wonderland inspired project working on props or an Artist Fish Project, investigating ocean pollution.

In Term 3, students will explore Manga and expand their cultural understanding of storytelling. Advanced drawing styles, pencil, writing inks, colour, and text art is introduced as students produce their own section of a Comic Book.

Year 9

Term 1 focuses on Fashion and Design, from construction to illustration. Core practical skills explored include proportions, scale and understanding the human form.

This continues into Term 2 along with the introduction of advanced techniques and styles, as well as an investigation of graffiti portraits that have a political message or surrealist compositions.

Term 3 - students learn about photography techniques including stop-frame animation. Each student then chooses from a series of briefs to research and develop ideas towards their own inspired photoshoot.

Key Stage 4 Curriculum:

At Key Stage 4, our GSCE course begins with advanced skills to encourage creative practise and confidence with materials. Students are encouraged to be inquisitive, curious and imaginative at all times. Challenged with connecting to a given ‘theme’ on a deeper level, our young artists will take inspiration from the outside world through investigation into multicultural art, craft and design practices which are grounded in historical and contemporary contexts. Students produce a sustained body of work both inside and outside of their sketchbooks to demonstrate how they are meeting the assessment criteria.

Through engagement with art on a social, critical and practical level, Key Stage 4 students are continually informing and expanding their cultural heritage with awareness of the creative industries, other societies and beliefs.

Skills learned throughout this course are highly transferable and provide valuable experience for students considering future careers in Performance, Theatre, Film, TV, Gaming, Health & Wellbeing, Psychology, Science, Botany, Engineering, Architecture, Town Development & Planning, Fashion, Design, Illustration, Graphics, Printmaking, Packaging, Advertising, Branding, Publishing, Journalism, Politics and the Environment; plus many, many more.

For more information, please view the latest resources available below.

Resources

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Gallery