A Level Course Listing
The Art Department is located within a purpose-built centre where drawing, painting, fashion, printmaking, ceramics, life drawing, photographs, graphics, film, and sculpture are produced in class and activity times. Normally a good GCSE grade in Art is expected of a prospective A Level candidate.
Art is an extremely popular and successful subject in the Senior School. This is reflected in the high level of uptake at GCSE and A Level. Art enjoys a high profile within the school and local community.
Most subjects combine well with Art and all but very few university departments accept Art as an entry qualification.
The Art Department is well-resourced with spacious studios, its own library, IT suite and a sculpture workshop. We go on regular trips to London, European cities, the Curwen Print Centre and the Henry Moore Studios and Gardens. Seeing art at galleries is a vital part of the A Level course.
The Art Department has high expectations for all individuals and we wish to foster an ambition for personal excellence throughout the department’s work. It is our belief that these expectations, together with a caring environment, do indeed lead to the gaining of creative excellence.
Added to some natural aptitude for visual thinking and pictorial problem-solving, an active interest in the fine arts in the widest sense should be a prerequisite for any study of Art and Design.
An artist usually begins to come into their own at around the GCSE stage when the demands of objective drawing, the need for inventiveness and experimentation with different modes and in a variety of media are better appreciated. To continue Art studies to A Level and beyond requires a sense of vocation, well-developed expressive and cognitive skills, an understanding of form, space and colour, ability to sustain a particular work over a long period and a love of the visual language.
Several of our students each year have gone on to universities/colleges/art colleges to study Art or Architecture to degree level. It is usual to embark on a degree course having successfully completed a foundation course on leaving school. A portfolio containing a broad selection of work in a variety of media is often asked for as an entry requirement at schools/colleges of architecture and is obligatory for any art college course. Indeed, the quality and range of your creative work are of the utmost importance at the interview stage.
Examination board: OCR H600–606
A wide and varied approach to A Level Art allows each student to pursue their own work and to realise their full potential within a structured and friendly environment.
At least a grade 6 at GCSE.
Personal Investigation: 60%
This coursework element sees students devise, create and complete a project evolved by themselves during the course of the two years of the Sixth Form. There is also a written related study where students investigate the work of an artist, art movement or craftsperson. All work is then moderated by the examination board.
Controlled Test: 40%
Having been given the question paper during February, Upper Sixth students again devise their own work during the latter part of the year. Work is then submitted to the examination board for moderation.
i. Painting and Mixed Media
ii. Printmaking
iii. Sculpture
iv. Ceramics
v. Textiles/Fashion
vi. Graphics/CAD
vii. Film Making/Video
viii. Photography