You've probably heard the horror stories right?  Well, hopefully I can dispell this myth. With any GCSE there are significant work demands..  In Art the workload is consistently distributed but there isn't an exam at the end of the course. So effectively, the course finishes at the end of April (yr11) and therefore you will have one less subject to revise for in the Summer examinations.  The additional time spent completing homework throughout the course is probably the same as the revision time you would spend in the summer term preparing for an exam. 

We have listened to feedback from students and parents about workload and have stripped our course of all non essential tasks.  Students now only create the work that is absolutely necessary and work that we believe allows them to reach the Grade 9 standard. 

Workload issues can become an issue when interim deadlines aren't met by students and their work 'rolls over' in to the next deadline.  We provide more than enough time to complete each piece of work, and we teach you how to manage your workload as part of the course.  This helps you to manage the demands of the course. For example in Year 10 during Half Term 1 students are expected to complete 4x A4 observational drawings, a photoshoot and a mood board.  This equates to 7 weeks plus the 2 week holiday period (9 weeks total) which we believe is plenty of time to complete these tasks.  

The department is open Tues, Wed, Thurs after school until 5pm and every lunch time. We believe that spending at least one evening after school plus one hour of homework is enough to manage the workload - providing that you come to the sessions and actually do the work! 

Of course we do!  At the end of Yr 10 we go to a shoot location to carry out a photo shoot in preparation for our Yr 11 project.  This maximises the time available in September as you already have your primary source photography ready for the start of Yr 11. This helps us to make excellent progress, save time and ensure that workload isn't overwhelming.  

The photography students also go on an external shoot (trip) in Year 10, gathering important images for their project work. 

Sadly, art is an over subscribed subject and we simply can't fit all three disciplines into our timetable anymore.  To make a carousel work all students, teachers and rooms needs to be scheduled at the same time and we simply can't make this fit anymore.  We want all students to experience as many disciplines as possible so to preserve the identity of the carousel we have kept much of it alive and students will still carousel between either Painting and Ceramics, or Painting and Textiles.  Due to this change we've also been able to offer students the opportunity to opt for Photography which hasn't been the case before and we are excited to open this discipline up to more students (albeit on a capacity basis).