“We promote a deep love and understanding of Art as a force for good and a recognition of its important place in society, as part of our efforts to provide a fully rounded education and to produce curious and informed learners with diverse skills and interests. We explore issues of great importance to young people, such as the Black Lives Matter movement and the Extinction Rebellion, whilst also building an understanding of the cultural and historical importance of Art.”

KS4 Specification

AQA GCSE Art & Design.

National Curriculum

Gladesmore Community School prides ourselves on delivering the breadth and ambition of the National Curriculum.

Curriculum Intent

We believe that the study of Art is crucial to the well-rounded personal and social development of young people. Our curriculum is built specifically to allow our students to explore a range of personal and social issues in a safe and supportive environment. Students explore modern artists from diverse backgrounds and ethnicities and gain an understanding of their cultural importance.
Written directly in line with our wider school ethos, the Art curriculum is carefully designed to support and encourage our students’ confidence and creativity as highly motivated independent learners by the end of KS4 well equipped for the rigours of KS5.
 
To achieve these goals, we are committed to creating a safe and nurturing environment where self-expression can flourish and which supports students' spiritual, moral, social, cultural and personal development through our choice of topics. Given our multi-cultural cohort, it is important that we spend time exploring a full range of  artistic movements and social/cultural issues. We foster an understanding of both important traditional and contemporary artists and movements within their correct historical contexts, whilst championing diversity and respect within our community and our school environment, in line with our school ethos.

We promote a deep love and understanding of Art as a force for good and a recognition of its important place in society, as part of our efforts to provide a fully rounded education and to produce curious and informed learners with diverse skills and interests. We explore issues of great importance to young people, such as the Black Lives Matter movement and the Extinction Rebellion, whilst also building an understanding of the cultural and historical importance of Art. To ensure our content is accessible to all of our learners we determine and close the learning gaps for individual learners from KS2 to KS4 with a written survey assessing their experience of Art in Primary School, the responses to which are extremely varied.

As a department, we widen our students’ experience and appreciation of Art through the very active role which we take in organising trips and workshops with a range of London Galleries; this is important as many of our students are not exposed to such opportunities regularly or the enormous benefit which they provide in developing students’ understanding of Art and its contexts. In addition to this, we extend the learning opportunities beyond the classroom for both KS3 and KS4 with clubs and tuition, addressing the challenge that home learning can pose for some of our students. 
 
It is important for us to scaffold key technical skills and knowledge between KS3 and KS4 with a range of materials, ensuring that by the time our students are undertaking their Art GCSE they are confident in producing work and making critical decisions. We enable the opportunity for very able students to study Art at GCSE in addition to other option subjects and extraneously to timetabled hours, under the guidance of the Head of Art, providing them with the means to achieve this qualification with success at GCSE. 

As we look ahead with our students beyond Key Stage 4, we continue to build strong links with the course leaders for Art from the London Academy of Excellence, Tottenham, with students being offered the opportunity to visit their A-Level Art Studio. It is our central goal to produce confident and creative individuals, well prepared and equipped to continue their Art education. Additionally, we have created ongoing links with creative industries, architects’ offices and local commercial artists, with the ultimate view to helping our students to envisage the field of Art as a prospective career, challenging a longstanding negative perception in this area - and, ultimately, to build a strong appreciation of Art and its importance in our world.

Curriculum Summary