The Arts and Design
This term has brought engaging and creative opportunities where students across Years 6 – 9 have built their artistic skills and knowledge. Our students have engaged in Units of Inquiry where they designed and created sustainable products, adhering to concepts such as force and motion. Students have produced self-portraits, exploring with the craft of photography to represent their ideas. Through Performing Arts, students have developed the confidence and self-expression to communicate innovative thought. The Arts and Design in the MYP has enabled students develop curiosity, be flexible and become entrepreneurial. Congratulations to all our Middle School students on becoming risk-takers and open-minded in their own learning this term.
Rebecca Bettiol
MYP Learning Leader (Art & Design),Round Square Facilitator
Junior School
Visual Arts
Art club is run on Friday lunch times and is buzzing with creative activity! The club provides opportunities for budding artists to further develop their artistic endeavours. It empowers students to think creatively, develop skills, and embrace their individuality through art. Our capable student art leaders, Elle, Noa, Mary, Larissa are working very hard to create a fun environment for their peers. This is a promising opportunity for the gradual development in our students’ unique artistic voice.
Indeed, the supportive and encouraging backbone of the art club community follows these principles:
1. Promoting creativity and self-expression through the opportunity for students to develop their skills in their own time and express themselves through various mediums. This is facilitated by a relaxed platform and motivation to showcase their talents.
2. Building a sense of community by bringing together students from across grade levels with a shared interest in art. This fosters a like-minded lunchtime community and can promote new friendships!
3. Providing a space for collaboration and teamwork which often involve group projects and activities, allowing students to work together to create art pieces. This can help students learn how to collaborate with others, communicate effectively, and develop teamwork skills.
4. Fostering a love for the arts by exposing students to different forms and mediums, particularly through first-hand experiences to inspire life-long appreciation.
5. Provides an opportunity for students to unwind and relax. This is a notable benefit as the club can serve as a healthy break whilst instilling wellbeing habits.
6. Exposure to diverse cultures and perspectives in the content explored which can offer a deeper and more meaningful understanding of the world. Especially living in this incredibly multicultural community, the breadth of artistry explored can spark a source of connection with one another.
7. By encouraging experimentation, risk-taking, and learning from mistakes in the creative process, students learn to embrace challenges, seek feedback, and persist in the face of obstacles, ultimately fostering a mindset of resilience, growth and continuous learning.
Our school’s artistic mission is strengthened and celebrated by the art club. We wish our leaders all the best with their responsibility and encourage students to join and try an activity with us!
Vibha Tripathi
Junior School Art Teacher
Middle School
Product Design
Year 6 students are exploring the deserve history of time, culture, and place – discovering how First Nations tracked time. Students also are developing a concept for their own clock design – building skills in motion, systems, and movement.
Year 7 Students have been exploring motion and force and designing a propeller driven cars. They have engaged in concept drawings and now construction of their propeller driven toy cars for a target user.
Year 8 are considering aspects of products that use wood in creating their own sustainable wood product.
Year 9 is redeveloping a commonly used product by upcycling and redesign considering sustainability and impacts of globalisation in the design industry.
Looking forward to showing our students develop their unique creativity and solves problems using innovation and critical thinking in future Grammar News.
Well done to all our Product Design students.
Inneke Smit
Senior School
Arts and Design
The year 12 Visual Communication Design students have finished their first two Outcomes where they were to research and compare two contemporary designers of their choice and analyse two visual communication designs from a design field. Students then were to demonstrate the ‘Develop’ stage in their folios based on a technique and processes from one of their chosen designers they had researched and create their own two visual communications. My class likes the environments design field, and therefore we looked at developing floor plans and planometric views of a bedroom and a restaurant design. Students also began to test print on our new ‘Bambu Lab’ 3D printer, which they will be printing prototypes of their SAT idea next term.
The year 11 Visual Communication Design students just finished their first Outcome where they were to look at what is a ‘good’ and ‘bad’ design and create a research folio following the ‘Discover’ and the ‘Define’ stages of the Design Process using divergent and convergent thinking skills. We then looked at human-centered research and different design problems to investigate and form part of our research. Students then choose one human-centered design problem and pitched their ideas to the class in the form of a critique and wrote a brief. Below are some images of students’ research folios and images of their presentations.
The Year 10 Art elective students explored both traditional and contemporary artists for their first Outcome this term. Students wrote an artist analysis based of artworks from these chosen artists and used the interpretive lenses to support their written work, focussing on the structural and personal lenses. We then explored techniques of watercolour painting and researched artist in this artform. We even had the opportunity to have an artist from the National Portrait Gallery of Canberra, Fiona McMonagle, speak to our students about different water colour painting techniques and her about her artworks and the processes she used to create her work. Below are some paintings students had created in class.
The Year 10 Visual Communication Design created a mascot this term to present on an advertisement poster for a particular team, company or event which had taken place. Students explored different stage of the design process by writing their own brief, researching different characters and illustrations through books and the internet and sketched their own ideas in their visual diary. Students then developed their concept further before creating their final presentation digitally. Below are some of the students’ developmental work and final presentations.
The Year 9 Visual Communication Design students are researching, generating their ideas and creating development concept sketches of a book cover, game cover, bedroom interior, fragrance bottle and bedroom chair. These will be further developed next term and a presentation of all will be displayed as a final presentation and shown at Assembly. Below are some of the students’ folio work from this Term.
The Year 8 Visual Communication Design students are creating their own avatar character based on themselves, where they were to showcase their interests and passions. Students had to research, generate ideas, and develop concept sketches before creating their final design digitally. Students explored different design thinking skills such as a SWOT chart to help refine their idea. Below are some of the students’ final designs.
The Year 7 Visual Communication and Design students created a holiday postcard and stamp this term based on the ‘Big Things’ Australian monuments around our country. Students had to create their own ‘Big Things’ design for their holiday postcard through annotating research, generating ideas, and developing their concepts before drawing their design manually and digitally. Below are some of the students work from this term.
Performing Arts
Year 5 Performing Arts – The Wind in the Willows
In Year 5 Performing Arts, the students have been building their interpretative skills to perform scripted drama. This is in preparation for the performance of, The Wind in the Willows taking place in June. Students are developing characters and learning to express their voices with confidence. The rehearsal process in Term 1 been an engaging and exciting experience for our students. Stay tuned for more information about our upcoming musical!
Year 7 Performing Arts – Ensemble Building
In Year 7 Performing Arts, students have been engaging in a Unit of Inquiry where they have built their expressive skills. Students developed the collaborative skills to devise and perform improvised and scripted drama. Throughout their journey, the Year 7 students have built audience awareness and the confidence to express their ideas with confidence, imagination and creativity.
Year 8 Performing Arts – Conflict & Status
Students in Year 8 Performing Arts have been inquiring into the elements status and conflict to create dynamic and powerful drama. They explored with non-naturalistic devices such as mask, tableau, and subtext to develop symbolic drama that showcased their creativity. Students discovered the potential of non-verbal expression and performed their work with newfound knowledge of stage craft.
Year 9 Performing Arts – Diversity and Equity
Students in Year 9 Performing Arts have been inquiring into scripted drama. They have improvised with minimal scripts to create characters that exist with a myriad of situations. Students learnt the power of the spoken word and its potential to elicit change when projected through performance. They delivered duologues and monologues for their final assessment that were both meaningful and purposeful.
Rebecca Bettiol
MYP Learning Leader (Art & Design),Round Square Facilitator
Photography
Year 6 students in Art this Term are looking at photography. They are creating self-portraits to reflect on their own identity and how they want to present themselves visually. This introspective process aligns with the idea of exploring one's cultural background and personal history as they make intentional choices in their artistic representation.
