Art Programme

Visual Art at Sunderland College

At Sunderland School and College all students from Year 0 to Year 10 receive high quality specialist teaching in the visual arts, so that they can progress and achieve to the best of their ability by the time they reach Examination level. Currently at Year 11 the CIE IGCSE Art & Design paper is offered to students as an option, and in 2010/2011, the CIE AS/A level Art & Design will be also be offered.

Art stimulates imagination, creative thinking and provides students with a greater understanding of the diversity of art works from both within and beyond New Zealand. It helps our students to develop an awareness of New Zealand's unique heritage and culture of different ethnic groups in our society. When making artworks, students are provided with opportunities to express their personal experiences and emotions, to develop independence of thought and action, to become more adaptable to change and to participate in teamwork. They also learn to become critically aware and respond to their own and others work.

Never before has imagery been so central to the creation of identity or the gathering and distribution of knowledge. As television and internet begin to dominate as tools of communication and learning it becomes more important to educate through and about art and visual culture (Duncam, 2001).

The Arts

Learning in the arts encourages a life long interest. The arts make important social and economic contributions to our society. They help develop individuals who have the capacity to think and act creatively, meet challenges positively, finding imaginative solutions to problems and who show initiative and enterprise. The personal and social skills developed throughout the arts are highly valued and sought after by the future employers of our students. At Sunderland we also encourage our students to become willing, supportive and responsive future audiences for the arts.

Students can demonstrate these key competencies while learning through the arts:

• Managing self: self motivation and expression, setting own goals and standards, developing and applying strategies to act appropriately.
• Relating to others: interacting with diverse people, making connections, listening, sharing, exploring and interpreting ideas. Co-operating in group works.
• Participating and contributing: developing communities, connecting with others, expressing own views and accepting others. Performing, submitting work for competitions or exhibitions.
• Thinking: creative, critical, metacognition and reflection. Using language, symbols and texts: decode and understand visual, verbal, non verbal information, develop specialised vocabulary of the arts and communicate ideas.