Lead teacher - Mr Ares
Email - dar@ifieldcc.co.uk 
Qualification  - GCSE
Level - Grades 9 - 1
Lessons per fortnight - 5

Year 9 GCSE Fine Art Foundation: The year 9 GCSE fine art course aims to support you to develop your own visual style in projects encompassing still life, the environment, and socially engaged art, continuing to build your confidence in communicating and expressing personal ideas through your artwork. Working with a range of 2D, 3D and digital disciplines including drawing, painting, sculpture, ceramics, textiles, and photography. You will research a range of traditional and contemporary artists, helping you to build on your artistic knowledge, critical understanding, and skills which will prepare you for the personal projects in year 10 and 11.

Through this creative process, you will continue to develop your abilities to ‘critique like an artist’ and be encouraged to wonder, question and respond to the world around you. Critiquing like an artist involves:

• Communicating the context, ideas and processes behind your artwork in the form of annotations and group critiques.
• Analysing context, ideas and processes behind the artworks applying learning through the making of your own artworks.
• Developing your abilities to review your artwork as it progresses, refining your ideas as you move through the creative process.
• Enhancing your literacy capabilities through practice as you make, see, design, create, curate, and explore ideas and concepts.

Year 10 and 11: Component 1 Personal Portfolio worth 60% of your final GCSE

Work for this unit will initially be set by your teachers and then self-directed. You will have the opportunity to generate ideas and research from primary, secondary and contextual sources, experiment with a wider range of materials, techniques and processes. You will learn to develop and refine your ideas towards producing large final pieces. (This will consist of 2 projects)

Component 2 Externally Set Assignment worth 40% of your final GCSE represents the culmination of the GCSE course. The paper consists of one broad-based thematic starting point for which you will develop preparation work from the end of January in year 11.  At the end of this time you will sit a ten-hour period of sustained focus under exam conditions. (This will consist of 1 project)

Edexcel GCSE Fine Art, 1FAO

Assessment Objective 1 Develop ideas through investigations, demonstrating critical understanding of sources.

Assessment Objective 2 Refine work by exploring ideas, selecting and experimenting with appropriate media, materials, techniques and processes.

Assessment Objective 3 Record ideas, observations and insights relevant to intentions as work progresses.

Assessment Objective 4 Present a personal and meaningful response that realises intentions and demonstrates understanding of visual language.

Art & Design is a subject that has both direct and indirect links with specific career pathways and in particular will benefit any career that has a visual, design based, creative, imaginative or craft focus.

GCSE Fine Art provides a solid foundation for many careers, for example, fine arts, interior design, graphics, fashion, gaming, architecture and many other areas within the creative arts industry

Students who intend to progress into further education (VI form) would be advised to link their art option with Science, Media, Psychology, English, History, I.T. These combinations open many exciting career pathways.

A genuine interest in the visual arts including artist research, culture, film, media, and photography and visiting galleries/museums would be of considerable benefit.