The new academic year has brought with it some changes within the Senior School with the launch of a new Faculty of Creative Art and Design. The creation of the faculty sees the Art and Design & Technology departments merge into a single overarching department that oversees the world of visual and creative art, photography and design in all its forms.
As well as bringing together the teaching staff across the faculty, new courses in Three-dimensional (3D) Design and Textiles are offered, bringing a world of creative possibility for students from Year 7 onwards.
Head of the new Faculty, Naomi Gudge, tells us more about it.
What was the reason for creating the new faculty of Creative Art and Design?
It made perfect sense to bring together the different imaginative, technical and creative skills that are involved in art and design, enabling exchange of ideas, inspiration and practice. The new faculty promises a fantastically broad and deep range of opportunities under the art and design umbrella. Creative art and design as subjects are by nature dynamic and innovative, and we are sure that this new faculty will inspire our students even further.
This was also an excellent opportunity to hone our students’ skills and equip them with a broader portfolio of up-to-date qualifications. Many of our students go on to disciplines such as architecture, engineering or product design, and universities are asking for creative skills and a strong portfolio in a suite of visual and creative art subjects. We believe that a wider faculty will bring more opportunities for students to discover passions for and develop expertise in areas they hadn’t explored before.
What are the new subjects?
In Years 7 and 8 within their overall art curriculum, pupils explore and develop two and three-dimensional skills across the core areas of Art, Craft & Design and 3D Design.
In the 3D Design sessions, the focus is on developing creativity and making skills, and will include a rotation of 3D Design, jewellery design and textiles.
3D Design includes the traditional skills familiar from Design & Technology, such as working with wood, metal and electronics, as well as textiles and jewellery.
The focus is on developing creativity and making skills, and includes textiles, line work, mark-making, colour theory, product design and jewellery design. Our aim is to provide the ultimate all-round creative education for pupils.
In Year 9, pupils will be able to choose between Textiles and 3D Design, in preparation for GCSEs.
What new GCSEs are offered?
We are very excited to announce the launch of a new GCSE Textiles course, a dynamic and creative course which allows fantastic exploration of product design and creation in areas such as art textiles, fashion illustration, printed and dyed textiles, stitching and embellishment and installed textiles. This year’s Year 10 students are the first to embark on this GCSE, and they have already got off to a flying start with a brilliant Fashion Illustration workshop.
We also offer GCSE Three-Dimensional (3D) Design, which is close to the former Design & Technology course, and covers a broad range of topics that really enhance innovation, creativity, problem-solving and spatial awareness as well as hone pupils’ core skills. Students on this course will make full use of our facilities such as the 3D printers and metal and woodwork studios.
At A-level, we have a new 3D Design course, which includes work with resistant materials, with which pupils will be familiar from Design & Technology, and will also focus on problem-solving and spatial awareness. The course involves students creating a range of three-dimensional products, resulting in a portfolio which might cover product design in its broadest sense, ranging from environmental, architectural or interior design products, to jewellery, mixed-media, textiles or 3D Digital design.
The new GCSE and A-level courses sit alongside our existing Art, Craft and Design GCSE, and Art & Design and Photography A-levels.
What has happened to Design & Technology?
While much of the content of the courses will be very familiar to pupils and the wider Colfe’s community, the new courses on offer to pupils now replace what was the ‘Design & Technology’ option in its former iteration.
What are the benefits of the new subjects and having this within a single faculty?
We are tremendously excited about the flexibility and room for creative growth for our students from the wider faculty and the new courses offered.
For many of our students who go on to study creative subjects at higher education, having rounded skills across the spectrum of art and design is increasingly important. Students will have an excellent all-round grounding in creativity and making skills, across a huge variety of materials and media, allowing them to specialise in any of the specific disciplines later with a deep understanding of the visual language.
In a practical way, we can also share resources across the faculty in a way that means students will directly benefit from staff expertise within each subject, as it allows us to ensure the most appropriate teaching staff are in the best place for each class. We can also share best practice within the team more effectively.
Design is an inherent part of Art, and having an overarching faculty means we can share our expertise to ensure we offer students a holistic experience in art and design in its broadest sense.
