Student 1

Using easily accessible still-life subject matter, this programme supports students to explore a range of approaches to art making. The integration of digital and analogue media was handled successfully by students across the grade ranges. The programme allows students to build and develop their strengths as art makers, with final outcomes showing painterly or digital approaches depending on the student’s ability and strengths.

Colour, combined with limited subject matter, is a strong unifying element of this programme. Students benefited from mixing their own colours, which is evident in the Merit and Excellence submissions.

The initial photographs and observational drawings help to set up pictorial relationships that will be developed later in the folio. In some of the lower graded folios this took the form of explorations of scale, while in higher graded folios more complex compositional arrangements and patterns were investigated and refined.

This particular portfolio was placed low in the Achieved grade range. Recording of subject matter in dry media is appropriate for Curriculum Level 6, but the use of wet media is less confident, as seen in the layering of flat blocks of colour. The digital collages show Level 6 use of digital tools to cleanly cut out images.

Student 2

This submission, and others from the same programme each used a book as the starting point for their investigations. Students appear to have personally chosen the book they would work with, giving them opportunity to make choices about subject matter within a set of clear parameters. A wide range of media was explored, including digital photos, diorama, digital collage, photograms, design.

Works developed for the first panel of this programme gave students the opportunity to explore a range of photographic image making approaches and conventions. Elements from earlier works were developed into later works: for example, the re-use of the photograph of the two children in a diorama setting within the pages of the book. This provided opportunity for a clear and systematic visual development of ideas.

The second panel, although clearly related to the same context as the first, and sharing a similar colour palette, provides students with an opportunity to present evidence of their learning in a second field: Design. By working from a brief relating to the idea of a theatre or cinematic interpretation of the book, students have been encouraged to develop their own imagery and approaches to the original story, rather than relying on the illustrations and text of the original book. The ticket and poster outcomes that were specified are simple enough for students with a range of abilities to produce successfully, but at the same time give freedom to more capable students to challenge themselves.

Lower graded submissions often used photographic images from the first panel within the design works, whereas in the higher achieving submissions new photographic work was generated, based on what had been learned earlier in the programme. The same is true of decisions made around colour.

This particular portfolio was placed in the Achieved grade range. It uses photographic and design conventions at an appropriate Curriculum level curriculum. In order to move to a higher grade it would need to show better control of focus, depth of field and light in the photographs, and of typography and contrast in the design works.

Student 3

This programme begins by providing students with the opportunity to explore pattern and colour through illustrating selected concepts photographically and typographically. Working within this constraint, students across the programme were able to make decisions about the subject matter they wished to work with.

Following the initial pattern investigation, students used collage to explore increasingly complex compositions. These reference the earlier investigations of shape and pattern (the X motif, the grid of circles), reinforcing the systematic development of ideas.

Apart from the section at the top of the first panel, typography is barely used elsewhere in the submissions from this programme. In future iterations of the programme it might be worth swapping this section for an alternative investigation that could provide more opportunity for integrating into later phases of work.

This particular portfolio was placed in the Merit grade range. It demonstrates control of photographic and design media, and systematically develops ideas. To move into the Excellence grade range it would need to demonstrate a greater clarification of ideas: a range of compositions are tested on the second panel, but there is a lack of reflection on and refinement of these in subsequent works.

Student 4

A clear proposition has been established at the beginning of this body of work, introducing conventions that include pattern and landscape, and representations of flora and fauna. Structured artistic references have supported consistent development of ideas, and have fostered an appropriate range of student choice and decision making.

This programme encourages students to explore a range painting and printmaking media. Using similar pictorial conventions in varied media has provided visual coherence, and supported the systematic development of ideas. This is augmented by the use of a cohesive colour palette throughout the portfolio.

When viewing the selection of folios sent for verification by this school, it was clear that students had been able to make many of their own decisions about subject matter, colour and composition: Each submission showed a sense of student ownership. The programmatic support provided in terms of media choice and ordering of works enabled most students to show a clearly systematic development of ideas.

This particular portfolio was placed high in the Merit grade range. It demonstrates control of paint and print media, and systematically develops ideas. To move into the Excellence grade range it would need to demonstrate greater fluency with media in areas such as the inking of the intaglio and woodblock prints, and the describing of tonal detail in the drawn and some of the painted works.

Student 5

This meticulously planned, and closely structured programme nevertheless provides students with the opportunity to bring substantial elements of themselves and their own approaches to making works. A wide range of media is explored, including photograms, drawing with a range of media, digital photography, printmaking, image transfer, painting, collage and sculpture. By making work across multiple domains, students have been given opportunities to explore options for study in later years, when assessment takes place in a single domain.

The programme establishes a consistent pattern of initial explorations of subject matter (the graphite drawings, the portrait photographs) being used to inform and develop into later works. In the higher graded submissions, these developments make quite long leaps, while in some of the lower graded submissions the developments are shorter and more obvious. This pattern supports the systematic development of ideas.

Application of a specific colour palette across the submission provides unity to a range of works from disparate domains of practice: painting, printmaking, photography and sculpture. Although handled with varying levels of sophistication, even students who achieved in the lower grade ranges demonstrated capable application of their selected palette. More able students used their selection and application of colours to communicate ideas about their personality or communicate a particular mood.

This particular portfolio was placed in the Excellence grade range. It demonstrates fluency with a wide range of media, and systematically clarifies and further builds on ideas.