View Learning Outcomes | Learning Outcomes and Indicators

Curriculum Focus

The Visual arts strand can be undertaken either with a single discipline focus (Art or Media) or by using the visual arts disciplines in combination.

Art

Students explore a range of art forms to communicate ideas, observations and feelings. Art forms experienced at this level include painting, drawing, photography, printmaking, ceramics, collage, mask-making, mixed-media, textiles (tapestry/weaving/dyeing), sculpture, and design (digital/fashion/packaging).

Students develop their understanding of the art elements of line, shape, tone, space, texture, color and form by exploring them with a range of art principles, such as contrast, repetition, symmetry and balance. Students experiment with art concepts such as movement and proportion; for example, by using an illustration software package.

Students select art elements to represent ideas and describe shapes; for example, in a series of mixed-media drawings, natural and made objects are viewed from close up, far away, underneath and above. Students experiment with ideas and forms from art works of other cultures, using a range of art materials, tools, techniques and processes. For example, they examine paper-making techniques from a range of cultures before using a range of skills in manipulating paper to construct a three-dimensional paper sculpture.

Students communicate their intentions, choices and use of techniques as part of the presentation process.

When students observe and discuss art works from their own and other cultures, they use appropriate art terminology to name and describe key features, such as subject matter, forms, use of art elements, principles and concepts. Students learn about features and functions of art in their own community and other cultures.

Media

With guidance and teacher support during the production process, students develop skills in using media equipment. They work together to plan and make media productions, taking different production roles. Drawing on experience of media productions from their own and other cultures, they develop skills in planning their media productions by, for example, writing stories and preparing storyboards. They organise media elements such as words, sounds and images in different combinations and use characters and sequences of events to create stories and present information. They consider the interests of particular audiences and how their media productions will communicate to an audience.

Students organise presentation of their practical activities and media productions in the school. They are taught about structures that are used to order ideas and information in media texts, such as the length and content of news stories and the shots used to create a chase sequence. Students learn about key features of media texts from their own and other cultures; for example, the subject matter, the characters that feature in stories, types of publications and how digitisation is used in media publications, computer games and films. They discuss how these texts communicate ideas and are used for entertainment.