Arts Department

The award-winning Arts Department at Loretto College School provides your child with the opportunity to explore and discover any of the fine arts. Students in any grade can elect to take courses in Dramatic Arts, Instrumental Music, Visual Arts, and Dance at any time in their high school career. Students will have multiple opportunities to showcase their work and talent such as in our Winter and Spring Art Showcases, dance competitions, as well as local school assemblies and performances.

Experiences in the arts – dance, drama, music, and the visual arts – play a valuable role in the education of all students. Through participation in the arts, students can develop their creativity, learn about their own identity, and develop self-awareness, self-confidence, and a sense of well-being. Since artistic activities involve intense engagement, students experience a sense of wonder and joy when learning through the arts, which can motivate them to participate more fully in cultural life and in other educational opportunities.

The arts nourish the imagination and develop a sense of beauty, while providing unique ways for students to gain insights into the world around them. All of the arts communicate through complex symbols – verbal, visual, and aural – and help students understand aspects of life in a variety of ways. Students gain insights into the human condition through ongoing exposure to works of art – for example, they can imagine what it would be like to be in the same situation as a character in a play, an opera, or a painting, and try to understand that character’s point of view. They identify common values, both aesthetic and human, in various works of art and, in doing so, increase their understanding of others and learn that the arts can have a civilizing influence on society. In producing their own works, students communicate their insights while developing artistic skills and aesthetic judgement.