Varndean Creative

Full Year Course 

• You need to choose one enrichment to include on your timetable. 

• There are five categories to choose from but you can only select one enrichment session from one category.  

• You can choose one of the following:

Building Creative Careers 

Learn more about working in a creative career. Understand the different roles available and the skills needed. Gain support and access networking opportunities to build your career in the Creative Industries 

Art Curator / Exhibition

This enrichment will involve planning and holding an art exhibition to be held in a local gallery. You will learn about the process and roles involved in staging a real art exhibition which will be open to the public. 

Art Enrichment - Visualising Your Future 

Participants will expand their critical thinking, industry knowledge and be inspired by meeting local practitioners and hearing them talk about their life and work as professional artists. Workshops include gold leaf gilding - making xmas decorations, graphic design - creating and photographing composition and layouts using vintage ephemera and printmaking

Beginners Game Development 

This enrichment is for learners interested in games development but wanting to study other subjects. It offers a beginner-friendly, hands on approach to designing your own game and showing it to an audience. It focuses on 2D game design and art generation, using the Construct 3 game engine. Games development students are not able to take this enrichment.

Ceramics

You will learn handbuilding techniques to use with clay including slab building and coil building. You will learn how to apply decorative surfaces to clay using texture and coloured slip. 

Crochet

Open to all students, you will learn the basics of how to crochet and knit.

Creative Digital Skills

This 6-week short enrichment will give you an exciting opportunity to learn how to print a double-sided booklet using Adobe InDesign and also set up a website in Wordpress.  

Creative Writing 

Want  to write stories or poetry? Been secretly scribbling in a notebook and wondering what to do next? Creative Writing enrichment is for you! In this playful enrichment we explore finding inspiration, creating characters, crafting plots, building worlds, and just what does make a poem a poem? You'll have opportunities to write and share your words in a supportive, encouraging and fun community of writers.

Design Skills in Graphic Design

This enrichment will involve learning how to use digital design software such as Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator and InDesign to create a design project inspired by professional examples. 

Digital Illustration

This enrichment will involve learning how to use digital design software such as Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator and InDesign to create a design project inspired by professional examples. 

Drama Society

Open to all students interested in creating, rehearsing and performing drama.

E-Sports

To provide a place for gamers to share their passion. We will register with British E-Sports (Student Champs)  which is the schools / colleges competition / league. We will train weekly as a team and maintain an internal league.

Funk Band 

Enabling students across the college, regardless of whether they are enrolled on the music technology A level, to engage creatively and collaboratively with each other. This enrichment is the main opportunity for students at the college who wish to put their instrumental skills to use in a performing environment and enables students to form a community of creatives whilst developing their performing skills. This enrichment can also provide students with opportunities to perform at events across the Varndean calendar. 

DJ Club

Enabling students across the college, regardless of whether they have any formal music background or are studying the subject, to engage with music on a practical and creative level. The community created through this enrichment also enables students from different parts of the college to create connections through a shared common interest in dance music and engage with the wider creative community at Varndean. This enrichment also enables students to access performance opportunities across the Varndean events calendar. 

Introduction to 3D Modelling 

You will learn the fundamentals of 3D modelling, rigging and animating using Blender 3.0. You will be able to produce 3D models for a wide range of creative fields, including games, film, animation, fashion and architecture. This enrichment is for students not studying Games Development.

Life Drawing (Year 2 Only) 

For Visual Arts students. Work directly from a range of life models and produce a series of drawings, paintings, mixed media or experimental works.  

Make Media

An Enrichment that allows students to come & make Media products - eg blogs, YouTube videos, music videos, Film trailers, Graphic print products ....

It could help you supplement skills used in creative subjects and allow you access to support and resources to create you own products.

Printmaking Techniques

You will learn new skills and techniques using a range of printmaking processes. This will help you to understand and value the importance of printmaking and its ability to create experimental outcomes that are often unexpected. Over the twelve weeks you will be shown a range of techniques such as traditional Monoprinting, three color reduction Lino prints, reduction Collagraphs and Gel-plate printing techniques. 

Reading Challenge 

You will be given a Reading Challenge of 4 book categories to complete across the year- choosing your own books for each of the categories. Each week you will go along to a quiet space to unwind and read your book, or have a discussion about the book  you have chosen in the current category. 

Sewing Skills

Would you like to learn how to make things from fabric, to alter your own clothes, to upcycle, re-work or to mend things with stitch? Sewing is an incredibly versatile, practical and sustainable skill. This group gives students an opportunity to learn new sewing skills or improve on skills they already have. The course is suitable for both beginners and those with some sewing experience and may also be of interest to students studying Textiles or another Visual Arts course. You will build confidence in both hand and machine sewing, learn everything from threading needles to troubleshooting sewing machine problems and make a series of work exploring different methods of sewing. You will have the opportunity to undertake a simple personal sewing project, incorporating the skills that you have learnt, with the help of an experienced tutor and using the A level Textiles studio. 

Stage Production

Learn the technical skills required to help support a theatrical production. Apply your skills to productions taking place in the College and gain valuable experience. 

Studying Short Films

Discovering  how short films create narrative and tell stories of all kinds using cinematography,editing, costume and props, sound and performance. Films range from Hollywood-winning animations to low-budget dramas, student films to science fiction.