YEAR 7
In Year 7 you will explore the basic themes and skills in Art that are transferred and developed throughout the entire Key Stage 3 Art Syllabus. This will give you a a fair grounding for Art lessons, regardless of how much art you did at primary school.
The themes covered in Year 7 are:
- Formal Elements of art looking at colour theory, tone and shading.
- Celebration exploring Day of the Dead festivals and other world festivals, developing collage skills, 3D sculpture, surface pattern and painting.
- Creatures, Legends and Myths developing skills in clay, creating a ceramic pinch pot.
- Role Models developing skills of collage, and mixed media.
- Artist Study within all themes as well as project based homework developing skills of analysis.
Year 7 Key words
- Identity
- Complementary
- Tone
- Abstract
- Modelling
- Proportion
- Harmonising
- Shade
- Ornamentation
- Kiln
- Architecture
- Primary Colours
- Mark Making
- Features
- Photorealism
- Gargoyle
- Secondary Colours
- Blending
- Relief
- Grid
- Grotesque
- Composition
- Pinching
- Slip
- Enlargement
- Hue
- Smudge
- Texture
- Scoring
- Counter change
YEAR 8
In year 8 you will continue to develop and refine the skills learnt in year 7, exploring a range of new themes and techniques.
The themes covered in Year 8 are:
- World Cultures/Religions developing skills of drawing and tonal blending leading into slab construction and a ceramic pot.
- Observation of objects and the world around us, developing skills of perspective, artist analysis and mixed media.
- Identity exploring techniques in assemblage, mixed media and journal art.
- Branding exploring painting, printing and digital Art.
- Art movements over a wide range of time periods, including Psychedelic art and Japanese Superflat art, resulting in mixed media outcomes.
Year 8 Key words
- Primary Observation
- Collage
- Negative Space
- Psychedelic
- Superflat
- Context
- Secondary Observation
- Photomontage
- 3D Relief
- Identity
- Still Life
- Assemblage
- Clay Coil
- Context
- Sources
- Layering
- Stamping
- Photorealism
- Shape
- Blending
- Scale
- Slab
- Detail
- Pattern
- Geometric
- Branding
- Illustration
- Symmetry
- Idolatry
- Style
YEAR 9
In Year 9 you will develop a variety of more complex skills and techniques and gain a greater insight into what is expected in GCSE Art. Previous skills are built upon and honed, in particular a greater emphasis on contextual analysis.
The themes covered in Year 9 are:
- Skin and Bone exploring body adornment and pattern developing skills of Drawing, Blending and Gradation leading to the creation of a coil ceramic vessel.
- Nature furthering skills of observation and painting.
- Observing Our World using a wide variety of different techniques and skills such as painting, sculpture, digital and Journal art.
- Word and Image, resulting in a mixed media piece allowing students the opportunity to explore materials and techniques they may not have used in earlier KS3.
The Skills and Techniques covered are:
Coil Construction
- Painting
- Sculpture
- Perspective
- Mixed Media
- Contextual Analysis
- Digital art
- Assemblage
- Sketchbook Art
Year 9 Key words
- Modernism
- Surrealism
- Two-Dimensional
- Pop Art
- Organic Forms
- Propaganda
- Coil
- Influence
- Biomorphic
- Graffiti
- Essential Self
- Contrast
- Geometric Forms
- Body Adornment
- Dominance
- Unity
- Environmentalism
- Embellishment
- Vertical
- Repetition
- Old school
- Horizontal
- Graphics
- New School
- Contextual
- Symbol
CERAMICS
“Painting is so poetic, while sculpture is more logical and scientific and makes you worry about gravity.”
― Damien Hirst
Ceramics is a real unique strength and tradition of our art department, as not many schools continue to work with clay and have access to the facilities that we do in our school. You will work with clay throughout both the KS3 and 4 syllabuses and the majority of students find it the most enjoyable part of the art curriculum. In KS3 you will be taught the basic qualities of clay and a variety of techniques to create more traditional style of pots such as pinch pots in Year 7, slab pots in Year 8 and coil pots in Year 9. By KS4 students who opt to study art for GCSE will have honed the basic skills to be more experimental and create not only traditional pots, but also ceramic sculpture and ceramic relief pieces. Within the department we have two large clay kilns and a glass kiln.
