Proud to be a member of the
Lincolnshire Gateway Academies Trust
Proud to be a member of the
Lincolnshire Gateway Academies Trust

Art & Design



Art & Design Key Stage 3

What can students do to develop their skills in this subject area?

Develop visual literacy by active looking and questioning about how ‘everyday images’ are constructed and why. It can be the logo on your trainers to the cover of a book, magazine or website. Make a list of all the visual images you see in a day from wallpaper in your home to the sunset casting shadows in your garden. Ask friends, family and teachers about their ‘everyday images’ and discuss how and why they have been made.

Further develop your visual literacy by researching artists that are creating artwork that interests you. You can look online or at the suggested books/websites.

Develop hand eye coordination by drawing. Drawing can take many forms from using a pencil or pen to drawing with your finger on a steamy window! Pick something to draw, it could be a flower, your bike or an image from the internet. Try to spend time looking at the object first and see the outlines and the shapes. This will help you to draw accurately. With practice you can draw more complex objects and increase your confidence.

Develop creativity. Being creative is about finding new ways to solve problems or approaching situations, and is not exclusive to the Arts. Trying new art materials in different ways can help, you are helping your brain find new ways of working which is great for creativity! Try drawing with your non-dominant hand or even with a pencil in your mouth! Ask someone to describe something to you and you have draw it or even try drawing with your eyes closed.. Make a mini sculpture from blu-tac..photograph objects close up or from far away..?

Develop an outcome. Use all your skills from above to create something for a purpose. It could be a new logo for your form or a happy birthday card. You could ask if someone would like something creating, such as a poster for a club or a drawing of a pet. You could just even create a drawing because you enjoy the process..

What wider reading can be completed to support the curriculum?

  • Encyclopaedia of Drawing Techniques - Hazel Harrison.
  • The Complete Book of Drawing - Barrington Barber.
  • The Drawing Project: An Exploration of the Language of Drawing - Mick Maslen and Jack Southern.
  • Art at Home: 200 Activities for Kids by Lorna Scobie
  • The Visual Encyclopedia by DK
  • Art A Children's Encyclopedia by DK
  • Why is art full of naked people? And other vital questions – Suzie Hodge

What websites could students visit to support the curriculum?

The websites below offer exciting resources and opportunities for young artists:

www.tate.org.uk

www.vam.ac.uk

ysp.org.uk

www.hcandl.co.uk/museums-and-galleries/ferens/ferens-art-gallery

You or your son or daughter could download the free Art Fund app which gives you all the latest exhibitions near to you.

How can parents/carers help and what can be done at home?

  • There are often extension activities as part of your son's or daughter's set homework projects, or ambitious ways of approaching the projects. Ask your son or daughter to share how they intend to challenge themselves!
  • If your child is attending an extra-curricular club, they will be given fun challenges in a lunch-time session or after-Academy club every week, ranging from drawing to sculpture to photography.
  • A number of students in Art are also keen on producing their own ideas at home too. Activities to suggest or support could include:
    • Drawing from life – this is an extremely important (and sometimes the most frustrating!) skill to develop. Try observing objects or environments, accurately capturing the shape, textures and light involved.
    • Encourage your son or daughter to sometimes work for a sustained period and to compare quick, expressive sketches with more careful observations.
    • Transcribing work – copying a section or all of an artwork in a similar media allows your son or daughter to understand the processes the artist went through to achieve a certain style.
    • Collage or drawing in response to an event or a news story will help your son or daughter to create visual stimulus with meaning.
    • Building and sculpting shapes – this can be done with anything, and for anything, from blu-tac to craft straws; inventing new forms and structures in 3D is an important part of development.

Questions to ask about what your son or daughter is working on:

  • What made you decide to draw/make this?
  • How is this different to your other work?
  • What would happen if you used different materials for this?
  • Is there an artist who works like this? Are you working in a particular style?
  • How does this link to your current project or any other subjects?

  • Galleries: Gallery visits are extremely valuable for young artists and photographers, allowing them to engage with artwork in 'real life' and often providing a range of free activities, course and workshops for younger artists.
  • Useful Materials: A space in which to works sketchbooks with cartridge paper make a huge difference; drawing pencils in a range of grades – 2B-8B, pastels and paint. All supplies are available in different price ranges and quality.
  • GCSE: Students could also take responsibility for extending their skills via additional workshops and making pro-active use of example A* coursework available via teachers.
  • Activities: entering competitions – there are many competitions open to students run by Saatchi Gallery, The Tate, local and national Rotary clubs to name but a few, and your son or daughter should be considering entering some. Their teacher will be able to support and guide entries.

Art & Design Key Stage 4

What can students do to develop their skills in this subject area?

  • Deeper reading and reports about artists that have been researched in lessons, providing personal opinion and prompting further discussion.
  • Collecting broadsheet newspaper articles on traditional, modern and contemporary artists, recording and reflecting on details in the form of a journal.
  • Visiting local and national exhibitions and recording personal thoughts and reflections on these.
  • As part of analytical drawing, focus on measuring and proportional drawing – either a subject suggested by staff or own subject matter.
  • Experimentation with different materials to support current classwork’s for example oil paints or charcoal and chalk
  • Create a YouTube style video to demonstrate a skill or product; create a time-lapse video of a drawing/painting to show the process.
  • Creating an art work that reflects the themes such as global current events, wellbeing or religion.
  • Support the running a KS3 Art Club with the help of a teacher; to plan and design a short-term project.

What wider reading can be completed to support the curriculum?

  • Encyclopaedia of Drawing Techniques - Hazel Harrison.
  • The Complete Book of Drawing - Barrington Barber.
  • The Drawing Project: An Exploration of the Language of Drawing - Mick Maslen and Jack Southern.
  • Life Drawing in 15 Minutes: Capture the beauty of the human form (Draw in 15 Minutes) – Jake Spicer
  • Draw Faces in 15 Minutes: Amaze your friends with your portrait skills (Draw in 15 Minutes) – Jake Spicer
  • Colour: A Course in Mastering the Art of Mixing Colours – Betty Edwards
  • How to Draw Cool Stuff: A Drawing Guide for Teachers and Students – Catherine Holmes
  • The Paintings That Revolutionized Art – Claudia Stauble
  • 200 Words to Help You Talk About Art – Ben Street
  • Talk Art: Everything you wanted to know about contemporary art but were afraid to ask – Russell Tovey and Robert Diament
  • Black Artists shaping the world – Sharna Jackson

What websites could students visit to support the curriculum?

The websites below offer exciting resources and opportunities for young artists:

www.tate.org.uk

www.vam.ac.uk

ysp.org.uk

www.hcandl.co.uk/museums-and-galleries/ferens/ferens-art-gallery

You or your son or daughter could download the free Art Fund app which gives you all the latest exhibitions near to you.

How can parents/carers help and what can be done at home?

  • There are often extension activities as part of your son's or daughter's set homework projects, or ambitious ways of approaching the projects. Ask your son or daughter to share how they intend to challenge themselves!
  • If your child is attending an extra-curricular club, they will be given fun challenges in a lunch-time session or after-Academy club every week, ranging from drawing to sculpture to photography.
  • A number of students in Art are also keen on producing their own ideas at home too. Activities to suggest or support could include:
    • Drawing from life – this is an extremely important (and sometimes the most frustrating!) skill to develop. Try observing objects or environments, accurately capturing the shape, textures and light involved.
    • Encourage your son or daughter to sometimes work for a sustained period and to compare quick, expressive sketches with more careful observations.
    • Transcribing work – copying a section or all of an artwork in a similar media allows your son or daughter to understand the processes the artist went through to achieve a certain style.
    • Collage or drawing in response to an event or a news story will help your son or daughter to create visual stimulus with meaning.
    • Building and sculpting shapes – this can be done with anything, and for anything, from blu-tac to craft straws; inventing new forms and structures in 3D is an important part of development.

Questions to ask about what your son or daughter is working on:

  • What made you decide to draw/make this?
  • How is this different to your other work?
  • What would happen if you used different materials for this?
  • Is there an artist who works like this? Are you working in a particular style?
  • How does this link to your current project or any other subjects?

  • Galleries: Gallery visits are extremely valuable for young artists and photographers, allowing them to engage with artwork in 'real life' and often providing a range of free activities, course and workshops for younger artists.
  • Useful Materials: A space in which to works sketchbooks with cartridge paper make a huge difference; drawing pencils in a range of grades – 2B-8B, pastels and paint. All supplies are available in different price ranges and quality.
  • GCSE: Students could also take responsibility for extending their skills via additional workshops and making pro-active use of example A* coursework available via teachers.
  • Activities: entering competitions – there are many competitions open to students run by Saatchi Gallery, The Tate, local and national Rotary clubs to name but a few, and your son or daughter should be considering entering some. Their teacher will be able to support and guide entries.

Photography Key Stage 4

What can students do to develop their skills in this subject area?

  • Composition: practise taking photographs of a range of subjects exploring different composition rules: Leading Lines, Rule of Thirds and Golden Mean.
  • Viewpoint: take portraits of friends, family from different viewpoints: looking down on them, looking up at them, eye level. How does this change the mood of the portrait? Does the person appear more or less powerful?
  • Light: explore different lighting and understand its impact on the appearance and mood of a photograph; try photographing at different times of day - sunset, midday, sunrise.
  • Complete a documentary or photojournalist project. Find a local event, person or activity and take photographs over a longer period of time to create a visual story.
  • Join Instagram - the most extensive photography portfolio in the world. Follow at least 100 photographers you like; record your personal opinions on their work and this can be a valuable contribution to your GCSE Research grade.
  • Create a photographic diary; aim to create a picture each day which records/describes your life. This could be on Instagram.
  • Movement; practice freezing movement with your camera and a short shutter speed and blurring movement with a longer shutter speed and a tripod.
  • Make a number of photographs that document a poem or song; photography is really effective at evoking visual metaphor.

What wider reading can be completed to support the curriculum?

  • The Photography Book by Ian Jeffrey; An anthology of the most important photographs ever made.
  • The Digital Photography Book: Part 1 by Scott Kelby; a comprehensive beginners guide of the technical and visual skills needed to work in Digital Photography.

What websites could students visit to support the curriculum?

www.bestphotolessons.com - excellent easy to follow tutorials.
www.lensculture.com - website hosting the best in contemporary photographers work.
100photos.time.com - photography through history.
www.twistedsifter.com/2013/03/most-perfectly-timed-photos-ever.

How can parents/carers help and what can be done at home?

  • There are often extension activities as part of your son's or daughter's set homework projects, or ambitious ways of approaching the projects. Ask your son or daughter to share how they intend to challenge themselves!
  • Encourage children to be the 'family photographer' and document important family events and holidays.
  • Exposure to weekend newspaper supplements; many of these have examples of quality photography which will inspire students and help them understand the role of photography in the media.
  • Photography – encourage your son or daughter to use light in a thoughtful way, perhaps to add drama to a portrait or considering how light at different times of day affects the mood of the photograph.
  • Download a free trial of photography software or purchase this if possible. Experimenting with image manipulation software will develop digital creative skills.
  • Encourage your son or daughter to use different phones or cameras to take pictures. In the digital age we often have a number of these in the family home. This will increase their technical skills and aid understanding in the different ways images are captured.
  • Two techniques which can be used to improve the outcome of homework are:
    • Encourage your son or daughter to always take more photographs than they think they need; the art of photography is half the art of editing.
    • Encourage your son or daughter to 'shoot 360 degrees'; photography is a physical subject and exploring your subject matter from all angles will ensure you get the optimum shot.
  • Your son or daughter can experiment further with black and white photography, by taking family or holiday photographs and converting these to black and white in an app or computer software; this will increase their understanding of light and tone.

Questions to ask about what your son or daughter is working on:

  • What made you decide to photograph this?
  • How is this different to your other work?
  • What would happen if you used different lighting?
  • Is there a well-known photographer who works like this? Are you working in a particular style?
  • Galleries: Gallery visits are extremely valuable for young artists and photographers, allowing them to engage with artwork in 'real life' and often providing a range of free activities, course and workshops for younger artists.
  • Activities: entering competitions – there are competitions open to GCSE-age students run by Sony Photographers Award and the Young Travel Photographer of the Year; your son or daughter should be considering entering these. Their teacher will be able to support and guide entries.