Creative Arts Highlights
With the Year 11 and 13 exams completed and marks submitted to AQA, June was our opportunity to focus on our Year 10s and 12, as well as start to plan our KS3 projects for next year. We also had our A Level and GCSE Moderation visits take place: this is where an AQA external moderator visits us and checks our marking etc. Fingers crossed for a positive outcome!
Art
Year 10 have finished their first big GCSE coursework ‘Identity’ project, with some stunning artwork. It has been lovely to see students really developing their own ideas, art styles and some fantastic projects which they should be very proud of. KS3 classes have been working well with their projects, and it has been great to see more individual responses and artwork. It has been a pleasure to facilitate students coming up with their own ideas in response to their themes, and seeing students developing their skills further to produce some awesome WOW pieces. We can’t wait to see what those Year 9 students who have chosen GCSE Art next year will produce.
3D Design
The Year 10 3D design students concluded their Art and Architecture mini project ‘Local Living Space’ with a final 3D response made during their 5-hour PPE. There were many highly successful outcomes and the PPE also served as a great opportunity for all students to discover their individual areas for improvement and development before starting Year 11.
KS3 students have also been brilliant and very creative in this rotation- enjoying designing and making their prototype models and final responses to each of the project themes, with many students expressing an interest in choosing 3D design as a GCSE options subject!
Food and Hospitality & Catering
Students in Years 7, 8, and 9 have had a fantastic rotation this term, successfully completing their projects while refining key practical skills before the end of the academic year. They explored a range of techniques and also had the opportunity to develop their presentation and decoration skills, learning the importance of plating and visual appeal.
Year 10 students have completed their mini project, where they selected and prepared two dishes tailored to a specific scenario. Their work showcased impressive creativity and originality, producing exceptional results. This experience has helped prepare them for their mock exams in November and supported them in narrowing down ideas for future coursework.
Photography
The Year 10 photography students stepped up and did really well in their photography PPE this term. It is no small endeavour for students to be in a room for 5 hours completing their work and they rose to the challenge. The goal was to complete their first Coursework project, on either Architecture, Objects or Paper and the vast majority achieved that outcome.
Miss Wilhelmy has also been getting creative and has converted an old IKEA unit into 4 custom-made studios. Students have already made full use of them!
Textiles
The students have had an excellent year, expanding and then drawing on their technical skills to create imaginative pieces that really showcase their creativity in Textiles.
Year 7 students have been practising hand sewing and machine sewing techniques and then used them to design patterns on fabric and make functional wallets.
Year 8 have practised graffiti styles and then refined their sewing machine skills by creating zipped bags, using upcycled materials that link to environmental issues.
Year 9 have taken an artistic approach to Textiles in preparation for their GCSE options and used their technical skills to create pieces inspired by the textile artist Lucy Sparrow, using a mixture of hand and machine sewing techniques to create colourful soft sculptures.