Key Stage 3 Art

Your child must demonstrate his or her knowledge and understanding of the visual and tactile qualities of a range of materials, and to show how these can be manipulated and matched to ideas, purpose and audiences through their own work

What will they learn? 

They learn about codes and conventions in art, craft and design and, during the latter years of this stage, how these are used to represent ideas, beliefs and values throughout different times. They also learn about the roles of artists, craftspeople and designers in different times and cultures, and how these have changed or remain the same.

Increasingly, pupils are also expected to learn about the hazards, risks and risk control present in art and design, which will have a wider application in leisure and at home and work.

Lesson examples

Year 7 pupils explore their personal identities by experimenting with different shapes, colours and surfaces to express emotion and mood. Carl uses pencil and chalk to manipulate materials and processes, to show his ability to match visual and tactile qualities to express his intentions.

A Year 8 teacher asks pupils to select plant studies from their sketchbooks and to develop these further by researching examples of art, craft and design from different cultures on this theme. The brief is to create a design for a length of fabric which might be made up into a gift bag.

Pupils in Year 9 create collages from a still life group set up in the classroom by tearing, cutting and gluing papers that they had previously hand-coloured. Gregory shows an understanding and appreciation of this approach with his original interpretation based on the freedom shown by the collage artist Henry Matisse. He combines torn and cut outlines with parts of painted images into his work.