Art, Design and Technology provides students with a wide range of creative, exciting and stimulating opportunities. Across the department students will encounter three varying disciplines, Art, Food Preparation and Nutrition and Design and Technology. Throughout the lessons, independence, responsibility and maturity are developed. Students are given the opportunity to explore different materials, recipes and techniques to enhance and develop their practical skills, and are encouraged to solve ‘real life’ problems by developing their creativity, critical thinking and theoretical knowledge.
In year 7 and 8 students have one hour a week of each of the three disciplines.
For Y9, students specialise in one of the 3 disciplines in preparation for choice in the pathways process, and attend these lessons once per week. Students will then rotate between the other 2 disciplines for an hour week, with half a year being taught for each.
In year 7, students learn the basic skills in Art and how to apply these to become a successful artist. They look at the fundamentals of drawing and develop key skills that they will rely on as their learning progresses.
In year 8 students explore two projects. The first exploring the problems with plastic and the ocean, students create art with a conscience and develop and understanding of how Art can convey an important message. For the second project students focus on colour application, composition and the insect world.
In year 9 the students return to a highly skills based topic as they start to look at the human form through self-portraits, this project focuses in again on the use of dry media and explores the seven elements of art in more detail. This assignment is followed by an exploration of the iconic art movement of ‘Pop Art’ and how to develop work using the influence of prominent artists.
In year 7, students learn and develop key skills through and theoretical knowledge that are directly applicable to the real world of design. Students work on a graphics based project, exploring the world of packaging design, both digitally through CAD (Computer Aided Design) and by hand.
In year 8, students develop practical skills and start to explore how to work as a designer and how to follow a brief. This culminates in students making a ‘Bee Hotel’ to help protect the environment. Students focus heavily on the 6R’s and environmentally friendly design. Students then take on a shortened project exploring the concept of ‘upcycling’ and how to make a Passive speaker from this.
In Year 9 students look at how to apply design principles to a brief. Students work both individually and as teams and continue with the theme of environmentally friendly design and construction methods. Students explore how Design and Technology and Construction can be applied in practical settings by making set and props along with a set design for their favourite artist.
Students will gain the theoretical knowledge of food preparation and nutrition. They will grasp a wide range of practical skills that will enable them to prepare, cook and present food.
In Year 7, students investigate the principles of health and nutrition, this prepares students and allows them to understand how to maintain a healthy and balanced diet. We also cover the “Eat Well Guide” within this. In their practical sessions students understand the importance of working in a hygienic area and learn basic food preparation skills along with swiss rolls, burgers and a healthy pasta salad.
In Year 8, students recap on basic principles and expand their knowledge further by looking at world foods, and culinary delights across different cultures. This allows students to explore recipes such as, spaghetti Bolognese, cheesecake, frittatas and baking their own bread.
In Year 9, students look at food choices and how this can affect a person’s dietary needs. This encompasses the scientific principles of cooking through differing experiments. Within this year students will develop their own project based around a brief, this will involve menu planning in which their practical and theoretical skills will be tested. Students will be able to showcase this as they create their own meal based on their project.
During Year 10 the pupils will have five commodities they will study in depth. These will be:
Students will study one commodity per half term and will cook dishes related to each commodity weekly. At the end of each half term, the pupils are given a brief related to the commodity where they must research, plan and cook a dish of their own choice. They will also undertake an experiment-based practical task in which we will plan an experiment with background research, variations and hypothesis before completing the experiment and recording the findings.
During year 11 the pupils will complete their two coursework pieces and continue to revise for their exam. They will begin with their experiment coursework (worth 15% of their grade) where they will plan their own experiment with detailed back ground research, variations and hypothesis before completing the experiment, recording findings and concluding their experiment.
Students will then go on to complete their second piece of coursework (worth 35% of their grade). Pupils are given a brief where they will have to research before planning and making a three-course-meal. Their planning will include trial recipes, reasons of choice, shopping list, equipment list and time plans. They will then prepare, cook and present their three course meal within a three-hour silent examination. Once this is complete, students will evaluate their meal.
To complete the course, the pupils will be refreshed of all commodities taught in year 10. This will mostly be through theory lessons but some practical lessons will be included to revise visually for their exam.
Construction is a growing industry in the UK and offers practical skills
Throughout the course students explore three separate Units:
Unit 1: Safety and security in construction
During this Unit students will learn how a safe and secure Construction site should work. Learners will gain the knowledge and understanding to be able to plan how to minimise risk to their own and others health and safety in different contexts. This Unit is externally assessed in the form of a one hour exam and is worth 25% of their overall grade. Students have the opportunity to sit this exam twice, once in the summer of Y10 and again in the summer of Y11.
Unit 2: Developing construction projects
In this unit, worth 50% of the course, students learn to interpret technical information and to plan the refurbishment of a building, taking account of health and safety issues. They will use practical skills and techniques to carry out the refurbishment. This unit is a combination of written and practical work, culminating in an assessed project that explains, analyses and evaluates their practical task. This unit is taken in control assessment conditions.
Unit 3: Planning construction projects
In this unit, worth 25% of the course, students will use knowledge from their previous two units. This section of the course focuses on the construction processes and understanding of and needed of planning a straightforward development projects. This unit looks carefully at jobs roles and their outputs within an applied scenario.
All of the units on this course are taught synoptically. The qualification provides learners with a broad appreciation of work in planning, suitability and designing and maintaining the built environment for the benefit of communities and wider opportunities for progression into further education, employment or training. Students studying on this course will face a mixture of practical and theoretical knowledge, with a 40% 60% split, respectively. The majority of practical work will take place in Y10, in their final year students will look at coursework and revise for their exam in the summer.
GCSE Art and Design provides students with a wide range of creative, exciting and stimulating opportunities to explore their interests and to learn artistic skills and techniques to communicate their ideas and interests.
This two-unit specification enables students to develop their ability to actively engage in the processes of Art and Design – to build creative skills through learning and doing, to develop imaginative and intuitive ways of working and develop knowledge and understanding of media, materials and technologies in historical and contemporary contexts, societies and cultures.
Assessments for the GCSE course are completed through two units:
The initial part of this course focuses on teaching students techniques and skills, the students will learn to control and explore new media, starting with dry media i.e. pencil, charcoal, pen and culminating in 3D design and sculpture. Students draw from first-hand observation looking at the form, structure and surface texture of forms such as bones, fossils, shells, fruit, vegetables, nuts and seeds. This initial body of work will explore the theme of ‘Decay’ and will conclude in March of Y10. Students will need to photograph relevant imagery and use these pieces of primary research to guide and develop their work.
Students will then have the opportunity to take the techniques they have learned to explore their own interest and strengths. At this point in the course the students are encouraged to think creatively and independently to pursue Art in which they produce their best work. In this stage of the course students will be give titles from last year’s Y11 exam paper to develop their ability to work within this guidance and prepare them for their Y11 examination.
The second Unit of the course begins in January of Y11. Students will be given an exam paper with seven different starting points. Students have the opportunity to pick any one of the exam titles. This second part of the course further relies in the students ability to think creatively and work independently, students work in the same way as Y10, exploring, developing, researching and presenting. This part of the course runs until May in which students will sit a ten-hour sustained examination, this will be broken up over a minimum of two days.
Student work will be exhibited at the end of year 11.
