GCSE Art

creative Process

Whether students are following the GCSE or the IB course, their work centers around the creative process.  By working in this way, students are able to develop life long skills such as creative problem solving, risk-taking, communication, divergent thinking, analysis and making connections.

The department follows the EDEXCEL GCSE in Art & Design

The course consists of two units. For Unit 1, students produce a personal portfolio (everything we do for coursework) which is 60% of the total GCSE and for Unit 2 they complete an externally set assignment which is 40% of their total assessment. Submissions for each unit must contain supporting studies (mainly sketchbook work) and personal responses.

Students will be assessed using the following criteria:

  1. the ability to DEVELOP their ideas through investigations informed by contextual and other sources, demonstrating analytical and cultural understanding.
  2. the ability to REFINE their ideas through experimenting and selecting appropriate resources, media , materials, techniques and processes.
  3. the ability to RECORD ideas, observations and insights relevant to their intentions in visual and or other forms.
  4. the ability to PRESENT a personal, informed and meaningful response, demonstrating analytical and critical understanding, realising intentions and making connections between visual, written and oral elements.

The course structure
In grade 9 students follow tightly structured projects that teach them how to provide evidence for the 4 assessment objectives and also develop their confidence and an awareness of their own interests, skills and talents.  In the autumn term of grade 10 students are expected to develop their work with growing independence.  In the spring term of grade 10 students complete their externally set assignment.  This, essentially, is another project and follows the same format of those done earlier in the course.  The only difference is that students develop this project independently.

The projects below are a selection of possible projects that are undertaken and give a flavour of the range of tasks set and the type of work completed.  Projects are chosen by the teacher to best suit the needs, skills and interests of the students.

GCSE ART SOW Sept 20 - July 21

G9

Autumn Term 1

Portraits – students learn colour theory before applying this to painting portraits.  various artists are studied to support their work

Autumn Term 2

Portraits cont.

Spring Term 1

Portraits cont. – students create foam board and clay sculptures based on their portrait work.

Spring Term 2

Still-life – students explore the genre of still life through learning about the symbolism of objects in Vanitas.  They learn about conceptual artists' treatment of objects and plan and execute their own 'intervention' before developing a final outcome independently.

Summer term

Still-life cont.


G10 

Autumn Term 1

Movement– refinement of summer work and production of final outcomes.

Autumn Term 2

Due to the temporary changes to the syllabus for this year, students will undertake a 3rd coursework project – students will be given a title to respond to.  They will be supported in their development stage and given more independence as their ideas develop

Spring Term 1

3rd Coursework project cont.

Spring Term 2

3rd Coursework project cont.

 

 

GCSE Art & Design Student Handbook

In this folder you will find lots of document you can refer to to help with your studies.