YEAR 6 ARTS AND DESIGN COURSE SYLLABUS

Course Outline

Overview

The Art and Design Department at Wesgreen International School promotes individual vision and creative excellence. The curriculum provides a strong foundation in the creation, history, and theory of the visual arts that prepares students for graduate studies. The department emphasises experimentation, problem solving, social media and interdisciplinary collaboration informed by global awareness and trends.

Learning Outcomes

Students in the Art and Design Department will be able to:

• Produce a strong body of work.
• Establish and maintain a rigorous creative practice that is productive and professional.
• Develop an articulate, sophisticated visual, verbal, and technical vocabulary related to art and
  design from a broad range of styles and cultures.
• Apply comparative reasoning in evaluating works of art and design.
• Contribute to diverse, cross-disciplinary, collaborative endeavours.
• Resolve problems and challenge assumptions through innovative thinking and visual
  expression.
• Demonstrate integrity and make ethical decisions in creative expression and professional
  practice.
• Perpetuate a life-long commitment to learning, inquiry, and discovery.
• Develop the creative, technical and practical expertise needed to perform everyday tasks
  confidently and to participate successfully in an increasingly technological world.
• Build and apply a repertoire of knowledge, understanding and skills in order to design and
  make high-quality prototypes and products for a wide range of users.
• Critique, evaluate and test their ideas and products and the work of others.

Ongoing Objectives

Students are expected to develop their creativity and ideas, and become more efficient in executing them. They look critically at the work of historical and modern working artists and Art movements, architects and designers, making their own judgements. They are taught to:

• Use a range of techniques and mediums to record their observations.
• Use a range of techniques and media, including drawing, the use of colour, scale, proportion
  and placement of drawn work on the picture plane.
• Become proficient in confidentially handling a range of different materials to meet a required outcome.
• Analyse and evaluate their own work and other people's.
• Become confident working against a design brief in a given time frame.
• Recognize how and where to collect relevant research from, to support and inspire their
  developing ideas.
• Understand the importance of recycling within the lessons, such as the collage task.
• Understand the history of art, craft, design and architecture, including periods, styles and
  major movements from ancient times to the present day.

Unit Overviews

Term 1

• The students will produce artworks reflecting their personal identity. The topic will focus on each student’s personality, interests, hobbies, favourites, basic information like age, height, etc. Students’ prior knowledge on the topic, Elements of Art, will be checked and reinforced to provide more effective guidelines on how to go about the set task. Students, both on face- to-face or remote learning, will be presented with a variety of art types and techniques for differentiation.
• The students will produce artworks showcasing the beautiful UAE SKYLINES/ MOSQUES. The topic will focus on the heritage of UAE as well as the Art element colours. The artwork will be produced based on student-research and teacher-provided resources of images and information. Aside from briefly tackling UAE heritage with focus on famous skylines and mosques, colour element will also be highlighted. Students’ prior knowledge on the topic will be checked and guidance on how to improve will be provided. Students, both on face-to-face or remote learning, will be presented with a variety of art types and techniques for differentiation.
• End of Term 1 Assessment will be conducted to review and check the students’ ability to apply learned design elements and principles, planning and design skills and techniques. The task will be designing a “Personalised Wesgreen Bag.” In this assessment task, the students will choose a theme, e.g. sports, outer space, etc..., and must include the following detail in completing their design.
  • Their first name
  • WGP or Wesgreen
  • 2 or more images
  • 3 or more colours
  • 1 or more pattern
  • Correct application of 1 or more mark making technique/s (in shading)

General teaching methodologies will include Online and Face-to-Face (Blended) learning. Students attending face to face will be in class while online learners will log in remotely and follow the teacher’s instructions.

The teacher will be showing a PowerPoint presentation as tool of teaching. A mix of live, drawn or recorded video demonstrations will be utilised to present the lessons and tasks clearly. While observing the correct protocols of social distancing, students coming for face-to-face will still be encouraged to practise occasional collaboration, e.g. peer support and brainstorming of ideas, to help encourage and motivate specially the lower achievers.

Differentiated tasks will be given to students to cater all types of learners both on face-to-face and remote learning.

Feedback to students will be given through the Gems Phoenix platform. Feedback will include teacher formative feedback, peer assessment and rubrics for summative feedback.

Term 2

• The students will produce a working design of a pinch pot, which they will use and refer to in the subsequent sculpture task. Students’ prior knowledge on the topic, pottery and pattern, will be checked and built upon, to ensure that quality feedback is provided to each student. Students, both on face-to-face or remote learning, will be presented with a variety of art types and techniques for differentiation.

• The students will sculpt their own pinch pot, using air-dry clay. They will translate their design from the previous task into a 3D artwork. Students’ prior knowledge on the topic, 2D and 3D artworks will be checked and built upon to assist students with their work. Students, both on face-to-face or remote learning, will be presented with a variety of art types and techniques for differentiation.

Term 3

• The students will produce a variety of artworks about dogs. The topic will focus on different art techniques, elements and media. The following art techniques will be introduced.
  • Sketching and shading (pencil and paper)
  • Painting
  • Origami
  • Collage (utilising recycled materials)
  • Sculptures
• End of Year Exam will be conducted to review and check the students’ ability to apply learned design elements and principles, planning and design skills and techniques throughout the year. The task will be designing a “Water Bottle” focusing on the theme “HEALTHY.” In this assessment task, the students must be able to include the following detail in completing their design.
  • Their first name
  • A slogan about the theme
  • 2 or more images
  • 3 or more colours
  • 1 or more pattern
  • Correct application of 1 or more mark making technique (in shading)

Assessment

Formative: Throughout the terms, students will assess their own weekly progress and outcomes. They will also use peer assessment and the teacher will provide immediate and relevant verbal feedback. Written feedback will be provided when the task is complete. The goals of these assessments are:

• to help the students develop their ideas and creative response to the topic individually and as a group
• ensure independence through one-one-one discussion as well as personal and peer reflection using the WWW and EBI as basis of questioning
• develop their understanding of critical analysis of their own work and that of others

Summative: Internal assessments recognize the skills and knowledge built throughout the year.