Art

Vision for the Department

Our approach to Art at TKA is to engage students in the process of seeing themselves as young artists - developing their ability to recognise and make links and connections across the fields of Art, Craft & Design through the generation of personal responses.  We aim to develop students' practical skills and their use of visual language; to critically engage with our subject in the real world; to make work that is part of a conversation; and to experiment and take creative risks. Under-pinning these aims is the desire to foster in young people the creative joy that experiential learning offers, the richness of divergent thinking, and to give students the tools to be able to make sense of the visual culture that surrounds us. 

KS3 Curriculum

YEAR 7

Draw - investigation of 2D & 3D mark making through observation, exposure to range of drawing materials, techniques and surfaces, colour mixing. How do artists make marks which draw our attention? Different types and purposes of drawing. Benefits of experimentation with materials. Reading and talking about artists use of drawing & mark-making.

Borrow - investigation of genres and traditions and way artists borrow and abuse them. 2D/3D response to portrait, still life landscape - colour, relief, assemblage. Why/How cultures develop art traditions. Why/How artist abuse these expectations. How artists continually influence each other.

YEAR 8

Play - artists play, invent and love the absurd. 2D & 3D craft & design investigation of serious fun, inventions, surrealist games, chance encounters, hybrids, pop-up purposeful play - how and why? Embracing risk taking, intuition, mistakes Valuing the journey of making work - becoming lost, finding your way, problem solving via materials.

Sensation - art engages head, hand, heart - 2D investigations of expressive handle of materials and sensory observational encounters with objects, spaces and sounds - Artist relationships with ideas, materials and feelings. Different ways artists make work with and appeal to our head, hearts and hands Different ways art engages with the world.

YEAR 9

Click -  investigation of issues based work - responding to media representations. Photography, collage, montage, propaganda posters, editorial illustration. The role and expectations of an artist. How art influences the thoughts and actions of others - for good and bad. How can art be transformative?

Sense of place - a GCSE approach to an independent art project - Who are you? Where are you? What do you see, think & value? How can you make art to communicate this? Measuring value in different ways. How art histories and values are shaped, prejudiced and subject to change. How and why art institutions are addressing inequalities/ reconsidering art histories.

Going Beyond the National Curriculum through:

• Annual 'open view' art exhibition in studio space at trust partner, Kingston College
• Numerous visits to London art galleries and museums
• Exploring a wide range of new media such as ceramics, collage, printing, oil paints, pastels 

For more information on the curriculum beyond KS3 please refer to the Guided Choices and Sixth Form Brochures which can be found on the:

Curriculum Page