Art Department

The high standard of pupil achievement in visual arts resulted in the Government recognizing our success by making Sion Manning RC Girls's School a Visual Arts Specialist Status College in July 2002. This is a school where our students have historically performed particularly well in Art.

We are well known for our:

  • consistently excellent results at KS3 & GCSE (usually 100% A-C);
  • our continuing and successful entry of students’ work for competitions and exhibitions.

The Visual Arts department is committed to raising the aspirations and achievements of all our students whatever their background.  We believe our students deserve the best possible education.  We do our best to offer an effective education, the specialist funding offers the scope to enhance our resources and curriculum and to develop our community links further.

More recently in 2008 Sion-Manning was awarded the Arts Mark Gold Award for the high standards achieved by the pupils and the range of involvement with the community and other local, national and international projects.

Due to the extra funds granted to Specialist Schools, one of the existing Art rooms has been recently converted into a state of the art computer suite offering top of the range multimedia programs such as Photoshop CS4. A new specialist ceramic and printing facility has been made available by the acquiring of a large mobile classroom on the school grounds. We have created a more visually stimulating environment due to whole school strategy of improving the displays of all departments and displaying more of pupils’ art work around the school.

Our students can also benefit from :

  • better resources and materials;
  • increased opportunities to try out different practices and skills, making use of the specialist workshops;
  • more specialist Art teachers and practicing artists and designers working with our students;
  • wider and more varied opportunities to work with external organizations such as The Albert Hall, The Thames Festival and theatrical venues;
  • more after school clubs, weekend and vacation classes;
  • the fast tracking of motivated students with the intention that they are entered for their Art GCSE early, and then go on to take Art AS-Level while still at Sion-Manning.

It has also been possible to expand the range and quality of the community work by art staff having dedicated time to visit junior schools and hold workshops for staff from other schools both junior and secondary.  The local community is also able to take part in adult ceramic classes.


Implications for Other Faculties at Sion Manning

The visual arts status means that all faculties and departments in the school have a responsibility and a role to play in developing and contributing to its integration into the curriculum.  Learning styles research carried out by the E-Learning Lead Practioner has shown that a high percentage of pupils have a preference for a Kinesthetic/visual learning style.  This demonstrates that there is an advantage for all departments in approaching teaching and learning using visual prompts and material.

The Visual Arts department work with other departments to:

  • enhance understanding and awareness of the Visual Arts and to disseminate good practice;
  • to raise awareness of the role that the Visual Arts can play to enhance teaching and learning across other subject areas;
  • enhance and exploit the Visual Arts through Cross Curricular Work;
  • assist departments in developing their Visual Arts related resources.

Community Cohesion Opportunities

The Visual Arts department works with Partner Primary and Secondary Schools to develop their teaching and learning in the Visual Arts by:

  • providing high quality teaching approaches for primary and secondary teachers, through training/inset;
  • disseminating good practice through providing opportunities for lesson observation access to exhibitions, display meetings and discussions;
  • disseminating good practice through sharing specialist teaching resources and facilities;
  • providing high quality learning opportunities for students, such as lessons, workshops, and extra curricular clubs;
  • disseminating good practice through offering a range of practices (batik, silk screen printing, using clay, various printing methods and general art);
  • providing curriculum development that supports the highest levels of student learning, through schemes of work, lesson plans, etc.
  • encouraging the exhibition of art work as part of our school exhibition centre;
  • inviting the local community to exhibitions of pupil work.

Other Community Areas

The Visual Arts department works with adults in the community including parents in the following ways:

  • offer classes, training, workshops, facilities and resources;
  • work with Arts organizations on collaborative projects.