TEACHING AND LEARNING

This page last updated 16 May 2005

TEACHING AND LEARNING

Observation, Expression, Communication
Visual Literacy
Imagination
The Skills of Making and the Place of Craft
Critical Studies Activities
The Visual Elements
Practical Activities

Observation, Expression, Communication
Drawing supports a range of purposes, which may be highly personal, giving the artist a means of communicating perceptions, ideas or state of mind. It may serve a preparatory purpose, as in the preliminary work for a piece of sculpture. It may be explanatory, describing processes or ideas, for example showing how a design idea may be realised. It may constitute a finished work in its own right. A drawing may be made from direct observation, memory or imagination, or it may be created simply out of the physical activity of drawing itself. There are a number of approaches to drawing, including objective and expressive drawing, and drawing using analysis and synthesis. Drawing is one of the most direct, intimate and accessible means of expression available to artists. It is usually the first practical stage of giving form to perceptions and feelings and ideas prior to communicating them to others.

The ability to draw competently and for a variety of purposes increases pupils’ confidence to manage a range of art activities throughout their schooling. In Key Stage 1, pupils usually begin by drawing symbolically to tell stories about what they have seen, imagined or remembered.

In Key Stages 1 and 2, the investigation of the real world through drawing adds to pupils’ ability to work effectively in a number of subjects. It also enables pupils to build up a collection of drawings and visual memories to support their work in art.

In all Key Stages, but especially in Key Stage 3/4 and post-16, drawing encourages stylistic developments and a deeper understanding of how topics and materials can be explored.

Visual Literacy
Young people need to be visually literate to function effectively in society. Visual images enter everyone’s life through the mass media, they carry information and ideas within popular culture. Pupils' understanding of the possibilities of visual language and of the variety of forms of expression available is significantly expanded through the study of the work of artists, craftworkers, architects and designers.

Pupils who are visually literate have more control over their own work and are better able to understand, enjoy and discriminate between the images and objects that appear both in the familiar environments of the home and the neighbourhood, and in less familiar places, such an museums.

Imagination
Imagination may be seen as a capacity to explore and experiment with memory, make new combinations or mental images, and envisage an end product which may then be realised. Perception of the world cannot be separated from an interpretation of it, and that interpretation is affected by past experiences. Pupils can use their imagination to recall past experiences and relate them to present ones. They are free to use their imagination to combine ideas rationally or irrationally, constructing from the remembered and perceived elements at their disposal. In addition, the imagination may see quite ordinary objects or events as significant in a new way. It is this creative dimension which distinguishes imagination from memory.

The Skills of Making and the Place of Craft
A sound basis of craft teaching should underpin the learning of practical skills. Neither art nor design can reach proper fruition without the finely co-ordinated control of practical work, coupled with a close familiarity with the nature and qualities of many materials which craft teaching provides. One of the principle educational benefits coming from art education is an insight into materials and skills. The sensitive handling of materials and tools and the understanding of their properties require much education of the sense and touch, co-ordinated with that of sight.

Critical Studies Activities
Whilst art and design has been regarded primarily as a practical subject there is a need to provide a programme that caters specifically for the development of pupils’ critical abilities, and their capacity to make informed judgements about works of art, craft, design and architecture.

A framework for aesthetic judgements can be introduced and developed by the teacher through skillful questioning, which will encourage pupils to understand the difference between their instant choices and the making of informed judgements.

As the Programmes of Study are defined, it is inevitable that some factual or contextual background is necessary if pupils are to recognise and identify the work of artists and styles. It is important that such knowledge should not be the most prominent element of critical studies activities, and teachers must endeavour to find interesting and natural ways of introducing this.

The Visual Elements
The Visual Elements of line, tone, shape, colour, texture, form, pattern and composition are central to most art, design and craft activities, providing a focus for selecting subject stimulus, materials and contextual references. They will be an important feature of planning programmes of study.

Practical Activities
All practical activities should be selected for their appropriateness to the initial stimulus, to the visual element and incorporate suitable contextual references. Most will include some form of teaching and assessment objective.

All pupils should have opportunity to experience from a wide range of challenges within each Key Stage.

PAINTING, DRAWING, COLLAGE, SCULPTURE, CERAMICS, TEXTILES,

PRINTMAKING, ICT.

This page last updated 16 May 2005