Photography

All students have an inner-belief and ambition to fulfil their dreams and live a happy and successful life.

This curriculum develops the confidence to explore ideas and imagery in a visual arts context through engagement with a range of photography themes and practises. By encouraging and celebrating individuality and considering diverse personal themes with historical and cultural contexts, this curriculum aims to broaden students’ minds and give them the tools to analyse the visual world effectively and contribute to its ongoing development through their active participation. 

All students leave our academy with first-rate qualifications: 

This curriculum works towards in depth investigations that enables us to personalise pathways leading to unique and exceptional work. This personal approach supports high levels of attainment at GCSE level and progression to further high-level qualifications post 16. By instilling and developing core skills across a diverse range of techniques and equipment, we provide students with a foundation from which they can confidently build specialist skills and techniques they can apply to further study and degree level qualifications. 

All students develop exceptional character: 

This curriculum instils students with a growth mind-set through our approach to delivery. We cover broad themes, through developing a willingness to consider and explore new ideas, try new techniques, and develop individual bodies of work that reflect their character, interests and experiences. Students are encouraged to try new processes and learn through practice and determination to improve the skills necessary to successfully communicate their ideas in visual language. A strong work ethic is developed through additional expert workshops and students are taught to consider the visual world as an intrinsic part of their being.  

All students leave our academy with high levels of cultural and global awareness:

This curriculum embraces and encourages diversity by encouraging students to study photography from a range of times, cultures and personal themes. We aim to enlighten our students to the rich and varied visual arts communities in their locality and on a global scale. We do this through discussions and study of local and UK based photographers/artists and broad photography genres, additionally providing students with the opportunity to work with a local professional photographer. Participation in local and national competitions such as the ‘Hull Young Artist of the Year’ and the ‘Royal Academy of Arts Summer Exhibition’ promote local and national opportunities and encourages awareness of visual arts culture and career progression. The rich global history of visual and creative practises is at the heart of analytical research that informs student’s work and is used to build knowledge and understanding of the lives and work of others. Experiences of individuals and groups, both personal and in contextual settings, are used as starting points for exploring ideas and broader personal themes. The visual arts are a constant debate between photographers/artists and their surroundings where all viewpoints are valid and students are encouraged to feel they can contribute to wider debates around social issues through their own visual outcomes becoming more personal and meaningful. 

All students leave with an array of positive memories that last for a lifetime:

The curriculum provides students with an opportunity to build relationships forged by shared investigations of our individual and collective responses to our experiences and the world around us. The highest expectations and a mutual respect are essential parts of the open willingness to share built through our passion for visual expression. The freedom to explore ideas in an environment of trust and shared passion for the arts encourages experiences that create positive and lasting memories. Participation in wider events such as ‘Hull Young Artist of The Year’ and ‘Royal Academy of Arts Summer Exhibition’ promote the success and high achievement of our students.