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Art

Art

Curriculum Overview

Art at SJI International stimulates creative imaginations, challenges perceptions and develops innovative and analytical skills. It is a subject that enriches personal identity and builds awareness of aesthetics in a real-world context. The art department at SJI International aims to cultivate diverse and dynamic environments that allow students to confidently inquire into concepts, topics, and ideas that they find of value according to their unique interests. It is student-centred, inspires curiosity, and promotes autonomous life-long learning with creativity as a vehicle of self-discovery.

Grades 7 and 8

In Grades 7 and 8, students learn the importance and power of art through personal and collective creative expression. They will work on projects to develop various art-making skills, from 2D painting and drawing to 3D sculptures and ceramics to digital moving images and textiles. Students are led through specific techniques and processes while learning the importance of being open-minded with the creative process and developing practical skills with a resilient bounce-back mentality.

Grades 9 and 10 IGCSE Art

IGCSE Art and Design is a two-year course that encourages students to develop thoughtful individual direction in tandem with excellent technical skills. We follow the Cambridge course that offers one year to build understanding and technique and one year to complete all assessed coursework and a timed exam.

Students will explore various art making with materials ranging from drawing, painting, printmaking, photography, digital, textiles, and mixed media to formulate their artistic intentions and effectively express and communicate their ideas. During the first year, they will be exposed to creative techniques and processes while learning about various artists, artistic movements and art from different cultures and how to apply these to their ideas and art-making. Students will also have exciting experiential opportunities of art trips to galleries to nurture idea development and creative workshops, working with professional creatives to help build upon students' art-making skills. Creative and critical thinking skills are developed as core foundations, as well as perseverance and resilience to succeed to see through ideas from the imagination into physical manifestations.

Students will work individually and collaboratively with their peers and apply their knowledge to the coursework and exam assignments the students work on individually. The projects during the first year encourage personal expression, imagination, sensitivity, conceptual thinking, powers of observation, analytical ability and practical attitudes. In the second half of the first year, students will develop their assessed coursework portfolio and then, in Grade 10, their externally set exam portfolio, ending with a timed piece of work undertaken in exam conditions. Students who choose art usually spend a large amount of their free time working either in the art room or at home in their spare time.

Grade 10 Art Foundation Course

FC Art and Design is a one-year course that encourages students to think creatively through visual investigation and technical practice. In the second semester, the students who choose art for the rest of the year will learn to work in the same way required for IB Visual Art.

Students learn various materials and techniques through demonstration, workshops, practice, and individual and group work. Students learn about many artists, art movements and art from different cultures and how to apply these techniques and processes to their work. All this knowledge is applied to all assignments the students work on individually. The course will have a high level of active learning as students develop their art-making skills.

Grades 11 and 12 IBDP Visual Art

The IB Visual Arts is a challenging and diverse course that nurtures the growth of each student's self-expression to promote personal confidence, freedom of expression and creative resilience. It is highly concept-driven and student-centred to help students learn how to develop their unique visual artistic voice. We promote creativity by cultivating courage, passion and resilience.

  • Courage—to experiment and create, explore ideas through action, and harness imagination. 
  • Passion—to formulate ideas and communicate them in a variety of forms
  • Curiosity—about oneself and others, the world around them, and the limitless possibilities of human expression through creativity.

Creative and critical thinking skills are developed as core foundations with an open mind and growth mindset to see through ideas from the imagination into physical manifestations. Students will learn to experiment, explore and refine their art-making skills with painting, drawing, sculpture, multimedia tools, digital art, fine art film, photography, fine art textiles, fashion and mixed media to communicate best and express their ideas. They will also have exciting opportunities for art trips to galleries and exhibitions to nurture idea development and creative workshops, working with professional creatives to help build upon their art-making skills. The course also develops students' abilities to think outside the box, broad and creative ways of problem-solving, and autonomous learning of inquiry, which are transferable, advantageous, and applicable to all other IB subjects. It also allows students a good balance with other academic subjects for well-being purposes that are catered explicitly to and tailored to each student.

The IB Visual Arts comprises three components: a curated exhibition, a process portfolio and a comparative study. The exhibition will allow students to showcase their art exhibition alongside their peers and visually share their artistic journey of inquiry and self-discovery of how they experience the world around them. The process portfolio is a unique record of learning that documents students’ creative thinking from concept to delivery of art, art-making explorations and experiments of various materials, techniques and processes, as well as critical investigations of cultures, places, experiences and other artists that formulate points of inspiration. The comparative is an inquiry into comparing the artworks of different artists from different cultures and writing about their findings with a creative response. Art at standard level (SL) and higher level (HL) have the same aims; therefore, the subject content is the same. The main differences are the hours of teacher contact and the amount of work selected for internal and external assessment.