The Benowa State High School middle phase visual art program supports and reflects the philosophical framework and rationale as stated Queensland Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting (QCAR) Framework documents. This program hinges on the view that the arts are an integral aspect of whole school curriculum, providing students with unique opportunities to create, reflect, challenge, ritualize, critique and celebrate across a range of media and contexts.
This program acknowledges the important roles of the visual arts in expressing and sharing the vitality of cultures and communities, in constructing personal and cultural identities and in transmitting values and ideas. Through art education at Benowa State High School, students develop creativity, the ability to think imaginatively and critically as well as technical competencies and skills that can be transferred to their working and recreational lives.
Students become aware of the social context in which art is generated and of its role in cultural production. Students are motivated to participate in and enjoy the arts as discerning practitioners and consumers.
Global perspectives and international issues are reflected in this program which supports the school’s charter as a member of the Community of International Schools (CIS). Visual art provides opportunity for in-depth research and development of ideas in terms of global perspectives and the human condition. Historically within and across cultures art has represented poignant expressions of the human spirit, and continues to do so in an increasingly complex, globalised contemporary, post-modern world. Students develop an enhanced understanding of themselves as members of cultures and societies with pasts, presents and futures in which they can contribute.
By engaging in and reflecting through the activities outlined in this program, students develop skills and abilities to use processes that contribute to their physical, cognitive, emotional, aesthetic, cultural, social , ethical and spiritual development. They acquire and extend insights and understandings as thy learn to value unexpected and desirable discoveries and to appreciate the ephemeral as well as the enduring.
In support of the schools philosophy to met individual learning needs and learning styles, this program develops breadth and depth ion arrange of learning styles ad modes of thinking enabling students to explore and construct meanings and to learn to convey feelings and ideas using the visual arts language, forms, symbol systems and processes. This program is based on the understanding that art is primarily a form of communication and that artworks carry values, are constructions of reality and imagination, and specific social contexts in which they are created, and have the capacity to evoke responses.
This program encourages students to become life-long learners in the visual arts ie. a life-long learner encompasses deep understanding, is a complex thinker, a responsive creator, an active investigator, an effective communicator, a participant in an interdependent world, and a reflective and self-directed learner.
The program incorporates the cross-curricular priorities of literacy, life-skills and a futures perspective. Engaging in and reflecting on arts experiences contributes to literacy development when students deconstruct, reconstruct, interpret, analyse and create spoken, written, visual and multimodal texts. They apply understandings as participants within texts as well as readers and viewers of texts.
Life-skills are developed throughout the program in terms of personal development skills (growing and developing as an individual), social skills (interacting and relating to others), self-management skills (the managing of resources), citizenship skills (receiving from and contributing to local, state, national and global communities, in terms of making decisions based on understanding and valuing of cultural and linguistic diversity, social justice and ethics).
The program encourages a futures perspective in terms of encouraging students to consider practices and philosophies that lead to the identification of possible, probable and preferred individual and shared futures, through the ability to re-imagine ways of being in the world with respect for delicate ecological balance of our environment, and the shared interests and diversities within our global community.
The program supports and builds upon new and existing community partnerships, in terms of opportunities for participation in local community events, artist in residence programs, excursions to regional art galleries.
The program is based on equity principles in that it aims to minimise inequalities for students, aim is to minimise barriers to access, participation, respects and utilises the knowledge base of all students as a basis for their learning and for enhancing the learning of others , develops understanding of diversity, makes explicit the fact that knowledge is historically, socially and culturally constructed, makes explicit the relationship between knowledge and power relations, and identifies and promotes the capacity of Art to develop knowledge and practices that empower students and challenge injustice and inequity.
Finally, the program has been structured on current school policy to introduce a three-year senior art course. The following course outline for Years 8–10 provides opportunities for student development of skill statements, course overview and sample task/s for each year level, with additional suggestions regarding integration of Year 10 into Year 11.