Art and Design

The Art department at Framwellgate School Durham aims to make art and creativity accessible for all. We aim to encourage students to extend, explore and expand their creative thinking and problem solving skills.

We aim to inspire students by introducing them to artists, craftspeople, designers and movements in art, alongside a variety of art made across different time periods, cultures, and countries.

We aim to expand students’ thinking and challenge preconceived ideas, encouraging them to develop their own opinions, be able to justify these and broaden their own cultural capital.

We aim to enhance and enrich students’ educational experience by encouraging them to express themselves creatively, to feel confident exploring media, and to be able to express their own feelings and opinions fluently, whether in the written or visual form.

Art encourages the development of many transferable skills which enhance learning in other curriculum areas.

Use the page navigation on the left to navigate between year groups. The strands indicated in bold illustrate, for each topic, how the key strands of learning develop over time. Clicking on these will highlight that strand only.

Year 7

Unit titles - Unit 1: The basics; core skills and colour theory
Unit 2: Landscapes
Unit 3: Op art
Concepts - Unit 1: Form, tone, texture, colour theory.
Unit 2: Perspective, structures of a landscape, composition.
Unit 3: Scale, form, tone, texture.
Methods and techniques - Unit 1: Grid co-ordinates, view finder, mark making
Unit 2: Application of painting, tints, tones & shades
Unit 3: Application of gradients using coloured pencil..
Media - Unit 1: 2B pencil, chalk, charcoal, block paints
Unit 2: 2B pencil, colouring pencils, oil pastel, pen, ready mix paints
Unit 3: 2B pencil, colour pencil.
Art history - Unit 1: Ancient art, what is art? Bob and Roberta Smith
Unit 2: Impressionism, Post -Impressionism
Unit 3: Bridget Riley, Victor Vasarely.

Year 8

Unit titles - Unit 1: Portraits
Unit 2: Pop Art
Unit 3: Still life
Concepts - Unit 1: Portraiture, self-portrait, symbolism, symmetry
Unit 2: Composition, contrast, presentation
Unit 3: Composition, symbolism, scale, form
Methods and techniques - Unit 1: Grid, tracing, tone, texture, colour mixing
Unit 2: Collage, layering, observational drawing, designing.
Unit 3: Enlarging, reducing, collage, observational drawing, simplifying.
Media - Unit 1: 2B pencil, rubber, cotton buds/blending sticks, watercolour paint.
Unit 2: 2B pencil, mixed media, pen, paint.
Unit 3: 2B pencil, pen, paint, Photoshop
Art history - Unit 1: Romanesque and Gothic, Tony Moore, Hector Gonzales, Chuck Close.
Unit 2: Pop Art, Patrick Caulfield, Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, Peter Blake, Richard Hamilton, Claes Oldenburg.
Unit 3: Dutch Golden Age, Picasso, Michael Craig Martin, Peter & Madeline Powell.

Year 9

Unit titles - Unit 1: Printing
Unit 2: Cubism
Unit 3: Personal response
Concepts - Unit 1: Contrast, silhouette, texture, exploration
Unit 2: Composition, analytic, synthetic, harmonizing, contrasting.
Unit 3: Visual language, analysis, developing ideas, refining work, experimentation with materials
Methods and techniques - Unit 1: Development of ideas, printing, etching.
Unit 2: Collage, blending, fragmented, constructing
Unit 3: Observational drawing, rule of thirds, enlarging, formal element investigation.
Media - Unit 1: 2B pencil, printing equipment and materials
Unit 2: 2B pencil, colouring pencil, collage, chalk and charcoal, block paints
Unit 3: 2B pencil, pen, PhotoShop, photography, mixed media, paints, collage etc.
Art history - Unit 1: Sonnenzimmer, Lucian Freud, William Blake, Albrecht Durer, Georg Baselitz
Unit 2: Cubism, Picasso, Bruno Del Zou, David Hockney, Low Poly Art
Unit 3: Jenny Holzer, Georgia O’Keeffe, Gustav Klimt, Tracey Emin, Jim Dine, Kandinski, Marc Chagall, Montse Bernal.

Year 10

Unit titles - Unit 1 60% of GCSE grade
Concepts - Unit 1: Line, tone, texture, colour, perspective, scale, form, developing ideas, refining work, exploring ideas, experimenting with materials, techniques and processes, compositions, presentation.
Methods and techniques - Unit 1: Grid, tracing, application of painting, mark making, enlarging, reducing, collage, layering, observational drawing, constructing, printing, rule of thirds, use of new media.
Media - Unit 1: 2B pencil, chalk, charcoal, block paints, colouring pencils, oil pastel, pen, acrylic paints, mono printing, PhotoShop, collage, charcoal, chalk, ink or any other material chosen by the student.
Art history - Unit 1: Any artist from ancient art to present day.

Year 11

Unit titles - Unit 1 60% of GCSE grade (completed before Christmas)
Unit 2 40% of GCSE grade (issued early January)
Concepts - Unit 2: Line, tone, texture, colour, perspective, scale, form, developing ideas, refining work, exploring ideas, experimenting with materials, techniques and processes, compositions, presentation.
Methods and techniques - Unit 2: Grid, tracing, application of painting, mark making, enlarging, reducing, collage, layering, observational drawing, constructing, printing, rule of thirds, use of new media.
Media - Unit 2: 2B pencil, chalk, charcoal, block paints, colouring pencils, oil pastel, pen, acrylic paints, mono printing, PhotoShop, collage, charcoal, chalk, ink or any other material chosen by the student.
Art history - Unit 2: Any artist from ancient art to present day.