Art & Design

Why study Art and Design ?

If you want to develop skills in Art and Design, expand your creativity and imagination then you will enjoy GCSE Art and Design. GCSE Art and Design enables students to explore a wide range of media and techniques. The course has excellent results and staff work hard in establishing a culture in which all attain their full potential.

Some students go onto to study art and design for AS/A2 in the Sixth Form. Many then go onto study art at degree level, eventually working in a wide range of artistic careers e.g. Architecture, Fashion Design, Graphic Designer, Interior Designer, Teaching, Graphic Design and many others. For those students not wishing to study art beyond GCSE, the course offers excellent opportunities to develop cultural and artistic understanding alongside creative skills that would benefit a series of careers.

Aims & Objectives:

• Visual awareness
• Self expression
• A range of materials, practices and technology
• Aesthetic sensibility
• Sensory perception
• Art word vocabulary

You will study:

One or more of the following subject areas:

• Fine Art – using a wide variety of media and techniques where a skill in drawing and painting will of definite advantage.
• Printmaking – screen printing, relief and are all available to students. Printing may be onto paper or onto fabric.
• Textiles - Dyed, printed and constructed textiles are all available to students wishing to express their creativity through the medium of textiles.
• Graphic Communication - Advertising, typographic design and promotional design are areas available to candidates with a strong interest in the commercial world.

You will learn:

• To express and record personal ideas by developing skills in using 2 and/or 3 dimensional materials
• To investigate possibilities through observation, analysis and experimentation
• To understand the world of art, craft and design and relate it to your work
• To present your work to its best advantage

Assessment:

Assessment 1 (Candidate Portfolio) (60%)

• Internally set and developed from personal and/or given starting points
• Selected and presented by the candidate from work undertaken within the course
• Requires evidence of how the candidate has met each of the assessment objectives

Assessment 2 (Externally set task or starting point) 
[research & preparation plus 10 hours] (40%) 80 marks (80 UMS)

• Requires a sustained period of focused study of no longer than 10 hours
• Presented to the candidates no earlier than the start of January in the year of the examination
• Requires evidence of how the candidate has met each of the assessment objectives

Trips & Excursions:

The department makes visits local/national museums and galleries. We also find visiting the ‘Maker’s Guild at Crafts in The Bay, Cardiff enjoyable, inspirational and informative.

Pupils are given the opportunity to submit their work for exhibition in the Porthcawl based ‘Silures Gallery’.

Pupils work is displayed throughout the school during the school year.