artsVoice Supporting the implementation of Years 7–12 visual arts, music, dance and drama syllabuses in NSW schools
artsVoice AUGUST 2013
7-12
artsVoice is a curriculum publication produced by Rah Kirsten to support the implementation of Years 7–12 visual arts, music, dance and drama syllabuses in NSW schools.
artsVoice
Cover image
Published AUGUST 2013
Shadow Masquerade (detail) by Tara Kissick, Year 9 Photographic and Digital Media Submission: Helen Yip (teacher) Asquith Girls High School
Any product and event information included in artsVoice from providers that are external to the NSW Department of Education and Communities are correct at the time of publication and are to be used at the reader’s discretion. The inclusion of product and event information is not an endorsement by the Department.
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INSIDE
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Australian Curriculum: The Arts - current status
More than remotely interesting: Learning at a distance
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Linking the Australian Dress Register to drama curriculum
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Intensive studio practice at the National Art School
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artsVoice your voice
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Enduring presence: Stage 4 visual arts unit
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CONTRIBUTORS
Welcome to artsVoice. Term 3 is one of the busiest times of the year for arts teachers, and already so much is happening. Of particular significance: the Australian Curriculum for The Arts has been endorsed by Education Ministers; HSC trial examinations and Bodies of Work exhibitions have taken centre stage in many schools already; and, HSC Dance Performance examinations are underway, with many teachers participating in itinerant marking.
Tim Gorrod Learning and Engagement
Lorraine Kypiotis National Art School
Tim is a classroom teacher at heart. He had a long career teaching science, maths and computing in country NSW schools before moving to state office where he worked on support and professional learning for the Digital Education Revolution and the NSW syllabuses for the Australian Curriculum. Currently he is relieving as Evaluation Practice Coordinator in the Learning and Engagement Directorate of the Department. In 2012 he was awarded a Premier’s Xstrata Coal Rural and Remote Education Scholarship which enabled him to travel to the UK, USA and Western NSW in early 2013.
This edition features new curriculum resources and a feature article by Tim Gorrod about his recent study tour spanning regional NSW, the UK and the USA. Lorraine Kypiotis provides insight to studio practice at the National Art School. I hope you enjoy the read, and look forward to your feedback.
Lorraine is the HSC Coordinator at the National Art School in Sydney. She has been teaching in the department of Art History and Theory since 1997 prior to which she taught English and Visual Arts in high schools. Lorraine has a master’s degree in fine arts from the University of Sydney and is currently working on a master’s degree in philosophy researching the plaster cast collection of the National Art School.
Rah Kirsten Creative Arts Advisor, Years 7-12
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AUSTRALIAN CURRICULUM CURRENT STATUS The Australian Curriculum: The Arts Foundation to Year 10 has been finalised by ACARA, and has been endorsed by all Education Ministers. It is anticipated the curriculum will soon be published by ACARA.
What does Ministerial endorsement mean for NSW? The following memorandums to Principals reference advice from the Board of Studies NSW.
New South Wales syllabuses In 2013, teachers of Creative Arts subjects in Years 7-10 and Creative Arts K-6 will continue to implement current approved NSW Syllabuses. In relation to new syllabus development for Creative Arts subjects in New South Wales, the Joint memorandum to Principals Update on the Implementation of Australian Curriculum in NSW (31 July 2012) advised that:
BOS Memorandum to Principals - 24 July 2013 The Board of Studies NSW released a memorandum to Principals - Update on NSW syllabuses incorporating the Australian curriculum (24 July 2013), advising for Creative Arts (and other K-10 learning areas not included in Phase 1), that:
The Board will follow its regular cycle of curriculum evaluation and review which will identify priorities for curriculum renewal. When a current syllabus or learning area is identified for renewal the Board will take the opportunity to incorporate Australian curriculum content.
Any decisions about adopting the Australian curriculum, developing syllabuses, and planning subsequent implementation will be made only after thorough consultation with NSW stakeholders.
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Regular updates and further information relating to the Australian Curriculum: The Arts in NSW (including Memos and links) can be found on the Curriculum Support site. You will also find information on the Board of Studies NSW site.
artsVoice AUGUST 2013
MORE THAN REMOTEL Y INTERESTING LEARNING AT A DISTANCE
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Students and teachers in remote locations have increasing access to communications technologies.
By Tim Gorrod
finished product is viewed by everyone at morning tea, along with photos and videos captured with a variety of hardware. Some bring their own devices, some are owned by the school. The common factor is that everyone is connected.
Recently I completed a study tour focusing on the use of technology to improve the lot of rural and remote students. Being a bloke, I was expecting to come back with a list of cool gadgets that would blow inequities out of the water. I certainly saw some cool gadgets – I’ll talk about a couple later – but it was the pedagogies I saw that were pivotal to great outcomes. I saw many successful classrooms where the technology was necessary but often improvised to achieve specific results.
So what’s important here? The technology? Well, yes, because without it the activity couldn’t take place. The curriculum? Certainly, for those students studying film, and for others there are outcomes being met in multiple disciplines. Skills for living the 21st Century? Sure – students work collaboratively to achieve an agreed goal – they are developing relationship skills. All members of the school recognise the importance of the three Rs – Relationships, Relevance, Rigour – vital to a successful class with relationships at the top of the list.
Here’s an example. Imagine a Year 9-12 school in rural New York State with 55 students, about 40 of whom are Native American. The teachers are called ‘advisors’. The day’s morning ‘pick-me-up’ activity involves the whole school – students and adults – making a Harlem Shake video to post on YouTube. Costumes have been brought in (one of the advisors is dressed in a lobster suit). The filming takes about 15 minutes and is hilarious, but a sense of common purpose pervades. Everyone moves to their activities at 9:30 and for a couple of students that activity is the postproduction and uploading to the school’s private YouTube channel. It’s done by 10:30. The
This school has almost 100% high school graduation rate and a very high proportion of its students receive college offers. Ex-students do well in college when they get there. Every student has some kind of internship and works on a major project – which is negotiated with their advisor and the end result may be a film, a book, a restored car, an event or whatever floats student boats. Students must present their work to the school community regularly in an
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Pick-me-up activity at Lafayette Big Picture school (enormous fun and collaborative learning)
Objects created with a cheap 3D printer (are these devices revolutionary?)
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exhibition. Take the example of a student whose project is a movie. The end product matters – it is not just about the process – in fact the process comes with a high quality product is the only acceptable outcome. The student must present and defend the work as it progresses, so it’s Rigorous. The advisor and the school provide mentoring and access to expertise. In this case expertise includes a course offered at the school by two college seniors – everyone is winning here. The student has chosen the project and developed the idea with their advisor, so it’s Relevant and personalised.
Relationships have developed positively. In my opinion, success factors include: high quality leadership, planning and support; staff chosen on their willingness to try new things and enthusiasm for the project; and, the occasional mandatory face-to-face gatherings.
The other R is the tricky one – Relationships. Good teachers have always been able to engender a sense of working with their students towards a common, negotiated goal. How do you describe the process though? Can you teach a teacher how to do it? That discussion is a whole other article, but
3D printers – how about a 3D printer that
So what about the gadgets? Some will find potential game changers in this list. Online app creation communities – Ko-su 3 is a great example.
can print a copy of itself? 4 On-line collaborative spaces such as Oba 5 Adobe Connect or Microsoft Communicator – accessible, highly specified virtual rooms.
there is research1 that says you can. Is it possible to establish good relationships at a distance? NSW’s xsel
Tim’s study tour was funded by the Premier’s 2012 Xstrata Coal Rural and Remote Education Scholarship.
virtual selective school 2 proves you can. Their students are admitted on the basis of the ‘normal’ selective high schools test, remain in their home school and use Adobe Connect to attend virtual classes for some of their subjects. Students, parents, teachers and principals are uniformly enthusiastic about the results.
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Richard Elmore says you can. www.instruc onalrounds.com
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xsel school website: www.xsel.schools.nsw.edu.au
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Ko-su: h ps://ko-su.com
This device has been described as having the poten al to bring down capitalism. The inventor of the Reprap printer speaks on YouTube - h p://youtu.be/TZfcETkbGWk 4
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h ps://obaverse.net
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Linking the Australian Dress Register to drama curriculum The following excerpts are from an edited transcript of a paper presented by Dr Christine Hatton to the Stitching up the past: progressing the Australian Dress Register seminar, 16 November 2009. “Costume in the context of drama is connected to the theatrical experience. It is an important means of communicating role and dramatic situation to an audience. It also gives information to an audience about relationships within the play such as how characters are linked by colour or design as well as crucial contextual information such as the place and time depicted onstage. In drama teaching we also use costume as role signifiers or symbols that can drive the dramatic action.
THE AUSTRALIAN DRESS REGISTER
[In Years 7-10] the drama syllabus focuses on explicit learning about the particular theatrical function of costume and how costume design works alongside the other design elements such as lighting design, set design, sound design and even promotional design in terms of publicising key aspects of a production to a potential audience. The drama study becomes more
The Australian Dress Register is a collaborative, online project about dress with Australian provenance pre-1975. This includes men's, women's and children's clothing ranging from the special occasion to the everyday. Museums and private collectors are encouraged to research their garments and share the stories and photographs while the information is still available and within living memory. The Register encourages people to consider their collections very broadly and share what they know about members of their community, what they wore and life in the past. The Australian Dress Register is available at: australiandressregister.org
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“Students and teachers have new access through the Register to regional stories.”
specialised and students start to look at characterisation and acting technique more specifically and how costume can enliven and embolden their performances.
personal narratives are highlighted by these garments, and these could be starting points for playbuilding for different audiences — schoolbased, for festivals and also for curriculum-based work. The stories behind the garments provide us with a real sense of the local, the everyday and the particular. These are interesting triggers that teachers could use as starting points.
This growing sophistication continues into Year 11 and 12 drama. There is a specific study of costume design as an artistic process in itself. Students might consider how a designer might get the creative stimulation to create a design piece that suits a particular production or director’s vision.
The arts act as a critical medium for generating dialogue about who we are and how we represent ourselves. I can see drama works created by students based on what they find in the ADR. In the field of contemporary theatre and also in the HSC Drama Course Prescriptions there is a huge new interest in stories and storytelling and in particular… ‘Verbatim Theatre’... These are stories taken from communities and developed into plays. Dialogue is based on the verbatim transcripts from people who experienced various events in their communities. The interest in personal stories and the contexts in which people live their lives are very rich starting points for drama.”
For their HSC Drama Individual Project, students can choose to complete a costume design project, where they must select play text from a given list and then create a series of costume designs for an imagined production. So what kinds of things could drama teachers and students use the ADR for? Obviously it serves as a great resource for costume design and research for students. It is particularly nice to have a local body of material for students to look at. For me, the most exciting thing about the ADR as a resource is what it offers as means of triggering ideas for playbuilding for students as they make their own theatrical works. For us in drama, the stories behind the garments are really exciting. We could explore what kinds of
The edited transcript of this paper can be found in the ADR’s online user guide: australiandressregister.org/resources/
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INTENSIVE STUDIO PRACTICE AT THE NATIONAL ART SCHOOL
By Lorraine Kypiotis
The National Art School Intensive Studio Practice is a NSW Board of Studies endorsed extension course in the Visual Arts that was initiated in 1999 under the directive of the Minister of Education. Now in its 14th year it is offered to HSC visual arts students of all New South Wales government and non-government schools who are achieving at the highest level of excellence in the visual arts preliminary course. The application process is competitive with close to 400 students applying each year. The purpose of the course is to provide an opportunity for senior school students to experience the study and practice of art in a tertiary setting under the tuition of practicing artists. The course aims to enrich and extend their study in the field of visual arts within the intensive study of seven specialised disciplines.
Yuting Zhang from Wollongong High School of the Performing Arts
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This year 178 successful students from 98 government and non-government high schools throughout NSW have just completed module one in the following disciplines: ceramics, drawing, painting, photography, digital photography, printmaking and sculpture. Of the 55 Government high schools whose students took part in the program, 16 were from regional NSW, including, Dubbo and Lithgow in the west, Richmond River and Alstonville in the north and Narooma in the south. Regional student Yuting Zhang from Wollongong High School of the Performing Arts shares her rewarding experience: ‘the four days I have spent at the National Art School doing the HSC intensive art studio program have really been enjoyable. I got the chance to study painting in more depth with a lovely, intellectual teacher.’ One of the immeasurable aspects of the course is meeting like-minded art students from around the state. For Yuting this was part of the experience: ‘I was more than happy to meet so many friendly and talented young people about my age doing something that we are all passionate about. I can’t wait to continue the second module in September! I do think that during this four-day program, my painting skills have certainly matured, and now I have a greater confidence in performing well in my HSC next year for art!’ Ruby Eather from Gloucester High School - who was successful in gaining a place in the sculpture program, mirrors Yuting’s sentiments: ‘During the week at the National Art School, I developed my communication skills
and was able to use different materials to build or create an artwork. I was able to widen my knowledge in the history of sculpture and develop my skills in using different materials. The first module has given me plenty more ideas on how to create my HSC Body of Work successfully and to the best of my ability. I fully appreciate the opportunity to attend the school and am looking forward to the second module.’ Many students who complete the HSC Intensive Studio Practice go on to apply for a BFA at the National Art School. One such student is Catherine Berry, now a Visual Arts teacher at Killara High School. Catherine became passionate about ceramics in 2000 during the first year of the course, ‘I feel like my National Art School experience has now come full circle. It was 2000 when I first went to the School as a Year 11 student to do the HSC extension course in ceramics with Louise Boscacci. I went on to do my BFA there and then came back to help out the tutors in ceramics. It was a lovely feeling knowing that some of my own students have the opportunity to attend this course - I know that it will be a valuable and enjoyable experience for them and something that they will cherish.’ This year, one of Catherine’s students was also successful in gaining a place in ceramics. Catherine recounts the student’s feedback on returning to school after module 1: ‘She had 'an amazing time' and can't wait to go back. She even stayed back after class to tell me that she has changed her mind about doing painting for her body of work and now wants to pursue
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Ruby Eather from Gloucester High School (2nd from left) with the sculpture group
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ceramics. It was so nice to see that same excitement in her that I felt about the course 13 years on!’
along with examples of their works to the National Art School by the end of Term 1. They are notified via their school by midTerm 2.
Whilst at the art school, students are extended technically and conceptually beyond the boundaries of their school art making practice. They are able to experience art making in a post-school setting and work with a broad range of media and processes under the direction of their tutors.
The course runs for 60 hours across school winter and spring holidays. It consists of three modules: Module 1 & 2: Studio Workshop Module 3: Assessment, Critique and Exhibition
Whilst the work produced by each student during the course is not necessarily related to the body of work prepared for the HSC, the student is able to use the technical and conceptual skills, knowledge, understanding, values and attitudes gained in their time at the National Art School.
In Modules 1 and 2 the students work under the guidance of leading practitioners in the field. Module 3 consists of one day during which students will be involved in assessment and critique procedures and in the preparation of a formal exhibition of their work. National Art School The National Art School is the longest continuously operating visual art educational institution in Australia. Since its beginnings in 1843 the School has nurtured the talents of generations of artists, many of whom have become key figures in Australian art. Alumni of the National Art School include Elisabeth Cummings OAM, Sir William Dobell OBE, Ken Done AM, Max Dupain AC,OBE, Bert Flugelman AM, Fiona Hall, Guy Maestri, Reg Mombassa, Margaret Olley AC, John Olsen AO, OBE, Martin Sharp, Wendy Sharpe and Tim Storrier AM. In 2009 the School became an independent higher education institution registered as a not-for-profit company, which is a commitment to the development of the National Art School’s intensive studio-based atelier methods, a unique model for fine art education in Australia.
A mark out of 50 given upon successful completion of the HSC Intensive Studio Practice appears on the student’s HSC certificate, but does not contribute to their ATAR score. As Program Coordinator over many years, I have observed that the students who do this course are always very excited to be here and motivated by the mentoring they receive and by the energy across the whole group. This campus is also a great place for them to be. Its sense of history, and current use as a nurturing environment for the next generation of visual artists, is inspiring. Participants really look forward to the experience. They know this is a great opportunity to test the water, and find out what studying at the School as a degree program student might feel like.
The National Art School will hold an Open Day on Saturday 31 August. All are welcome for history tours, hands-on art activities, and entertainment. www.nas.edu.au www.facebook.com/nationalartschool.australia
Further information Information brochures and application forms are posted online at www.nas.edu.au in February every year. Students must send their applications
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SUBSCRIBE Subscribe to artsVoice to receive notification of new issues, and to download, comment and share with your colleagues. How to subscribe through issuu (free account): 1. Go to the profile page on issuu http://issuu.com/thearts.curriculum 2. Click FOLLOW. 3. You can then create a free account with issuu.
artsVoice
If you are a secondary teacher in a NSW public school, you are invited to make a submission to artsVoice in the following areas.
YOUR VOICE CONTRIBUTE
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practice
approaches to arts practice in your classroom or faculty case studies of experimental or innovative use of technology in arts curriculum original photography of student performances, exhibitions or work samples (student release forms must be obtained)
collaboration
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case studies or outcomes from collaborating with colleagues in your local network, community of schools or with an artist/arts organisation
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papers you have presented at conferences reflections/analysis of current arts education research
research
To express interest, email a short proposal to Rah Kirsten CLOSING DATE for Term 4 proposals: 20 September 2013
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ENDURING PRESENCE STAGE 4
VISUAL ARTS UNIT
Enduring presence is a Visual Arts Stage 4 program, developed as part of the National Asian Languages and Studies in Schools Program (NALSSP). More Visual Arts programs as part of this project will be published in the coming months. Enduring presence: Program overview Enduring presence introduces Stage 4 students to contemporary artists from the Asia-Pacific region. The artists referenced in Enduring presence investigate and express dimensions of home as a way in which to communicate their identity and culture. The program aims for students to investigate how home is an evolving physical, emotional, spiritual and temporal space. Students engage with significant themes such as globalisation, placement and displacement of people, diaspora, living conditions and culture as personal and communal concepts. This publication is funded by the Australian Government Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations through the National Asian Languages and Studies in Schools Program.
Download the program on the Creative Arts section of the Curriculum Support website.
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AUGUST 2013
SECONDARY EDUCATION
7-12
CONTACT DETAILS
Creative Arts Advisor, Years 7-12
Rah Kirsten
Rah also provides advice on state and national initiatives and policies and the implications for the teaching and learning of Creative Arts subjects in NSW public schools.
Rah Kirsten is the Creative Arts Advisor for Secondary Education in the NSW Department of Education and Communities. In this role she coordinates curriculum and professional learning for teachers in the Department to enhance the implementation of dance drama, music and visual arts syllabuses in Years 7-12.
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