Art & Design

Art & Design

Our motto is: to be bold: to be brave: to think big

 At Park Academy West London (PAWL), the Design Department encompasses Art and Design Technology including food. Our vision is to deliver a well-thought out healthy creative curriculum that engages with positive experimental learning practice that promotes participation and ambitious outcomes of students’ work. We recognise our students are talented and we are here to help them realise their true potential.  We are a super creative department with big ideas bringing a decade of art education experience as well as the experience from prestigious art schools like Central St Martin’s and  The University of the Arts London (UAL).

Our Arts, Design Technology and Food curriculum is designed to stimulate creativity, engagement and inspire our students to produce high quality works with reference to the national curriculum. This is done by:

• providing students with a broad range of art, craft and design skills;
• developing students’ skills in creativity, adaptable and entrepreneurship;
• ensuring all students become confident learners in skill based activities  including drawing, painting, printmaking, ceramics, 3D and food;
• providing opportunities to develop subject specific literacy through exploration of art history context, design briefs and product development;
• tailoring learning and tasks to ensure all students develop strong sketchbook practice and design ideas;
• ensuring all students develop the creative, technical and practical expertise needed to the increasingly technological world;
• supporting students through the design and development process so they can critique, evaluate and test their ideas and products and the work of others with confidence;

Our students are provided with a range of opportunities to extend their learning beyond the classrooms of the Design department.  We offer a range of experiences including extracurricular clubs (drawing, painting and printing), workshops, visits to museums and universities’, engaging with speakers and outreach programmes.

Throughout the curriculum we continually encourage our students to pursue either a general fine art or to specialise in a recognisable field of Art and Design such as Architectural, Graphic design or Painting and many of our previous students have gone onto university to undertake further study in these fields.

 Key Stage 3

Key stage 3 students have three hours of Art, Design Technology and Food over a fortnight which is organised on a carousel.  All students will experience each of the specialist areas and will focus on exploring different aspects through a range of means including drawing, painting, printing, textiles, 3D, manufacturing ceramics, jewellery box making, furniture, product design, cooking and nutrition.   The topics to be explored include:

Key stage 4

AQA GCSE Art and Design (Fine Art)

Component 1:       Portfolio including sustain and satellite projects (60%)

Component 2:       Externally set assignment (40%) (Preparatory period followed by 10 supervised hours)

AQA GCSE Design and Technology

Paper 1:                Externally assessed exam (50%) (2 hours)

Non Exam Unit:     Substantial design and make task (50%) (30 – 35 hours)

Key stage 5

AQA Advanced level Art & Design (Art, craft & design)

Component 1:       Personal investigation (60%)

Component 2:       Externally set assignment (40%) (Preparatory period followed by 15 supervised hours)

AQA Advanced level Art & Design (Art, craft & design) – Photography

Component 1:       Personal investigation (60%)

Component 2:       Externally set assignment (40%) (Preparatory period followed by 15 supervised hours)

AQA Advanced level Art & Design (Art, craft & design) – Textiles Design (optional)

Component 1:           Personal investigation (60%)

Component 2:           Externally set assignment (40%) (Preparatory period followed by 15 supervised hours)

Curriculum map

Art and Design Curriculum Map