Creative Arts and Design

Creative Arts and Design Studies provide a portal to the school community. Through displays and performances both on campus and in the broader community, we continue to value and promote effort, risk-taking, authenticity and talent through our reflective pedagogy and best teaching practices.

The value of the Arts lies in resourcefulness, initiative, and metacognition as we challenge students to step outside their comfort zones.

Our innovative pedagogy in Visual Art is provided through purposeful, ambitious paths of inquiry through a confluence of experiential research-based practice supported by enhanced opportunities through co-curricular and extracurricular activities.

Practising artists, Dr Anna Carey and Leith Maguire, who exhibit both nationally and internationally, led inspirational workshops with students across all year levels. They complimented the work of Year 12 IA3 and Year 9 who considered the notions of home, loss, nostalgia and the domestic in their works. Anna and Leith also shared their insights about sustaining art practice.

There were many exceptional student outcomes acknowledged this year through highly prestigious competitions, including a Year 12 Excellence Award in the Creative Generation Visual Art, a GoMA Residency for a Year 10 student, and a Sotheby’s three-month Gap Internship for a Year 12 student to be undertaken in London.

Year 9 Technologies students were involved in a designing and 3D printing assistive devices for people in our school community who have been affected by injury or a physical disability. Our Year 10 Technologies students participated in the Gen[in] innovation challenge run by UQ Ventures. Two of our students were selected to pitch their designs at the finals event, held at The University of Queensland with one of these being selected as runner-up.

Our Australian Space Design Team were once again crowned Australian winners. This allowed them the opportunity to participate in the International Space Settlement Design Competition.

We had six teams of students between Years 5 and 10 enter the 2022 Techgirls Competition. This Australia-wide tech entrepreneurship competition has teams work with mentors to develop apps that address real-world problems aligned with UN sustainable development goals. Our Year 8 team were announced as Queensland Finalists, the Year 7 team gained a Highly Commended Award, and our Year 10 team won the GameChanger Award.

In Drama students were challenged to make, perform and respond to drama in diverse contexts. Year 8 Drama delved into a dystopian world and brought characters to life in a performance of scenes from the Magical Realism play ‘The Trolleys’. Year 9 Drama transformed both Ancient Greek Myths and First Nations literature into powerful contemporary performances. Year 9 also had the opportunity to share the skills they developed throughout the year with Year 4 and 5 students from the Junior School through a wholeclass production of ‘The Pied Piper’ and ‘The BFG’. Year 10 Drama students created and performed a piece that communicated important messages about cyber security and privacy. Year 11 Drama students explored ways that drama could be used to share the human experience. They analysed a verbatim theatre play that gave a platform to the voice of refugees and created their own drama that empowered the voice of a person or group of their choice. Additionally, Year 10 and 11 girls had the opportunity to work with an artist from Shake ‘n’ Stir Theatre Company, where they were guided through the process of creating drama in the Epic Theatre style. Finally, a major highlight of the year was a trip to Queensland Performance Arts Centre where students in Years 9-12 were given the opportunity to view a live production of ‘Holding Achilles’ by Dead Puppets Society.

Mrs Gaye Brown Head of Faculty DipArtT, BArtEd

The St Aidan’s Music Department strives to engender a love of music of all kinds, while engaging students in musical pursuits that serve their varying needs and passions.

Throughout 2022, students from Kindy to Year 12 have been actively involved in singing, playing, reading, writing, improvising, composing, analysing and reflecting about music. At the core of musical development is the advancement of each child’s personal musicianship and creativity. Musicianship refers to knowledge, skill, and artistic sensitivity in performing music and can be educated in every child. Creative thinking is a skill critical to success in our everchanging modern world and music provides a vehicle through which this skill can be explored and developed.

Unique musical experiences for St Aidan’s girls have been offered through curriculum music lessons, co-curricular programs such as Beginner Band and Junior Singers Choir, the Private Tuition Program and Extracurricular Ensembles such as Choir, Strings and Band. In addition to daily or weekly interactions during these activities, special events throughout the year have punctuated the St Aidan’s musical tapestry to further enrich the musical lives of our girls and provide opportunities for public performance. These events included recitals, concerts, assemblies, The Anglican Schools Music Festival, State Honours Ensemble Program, Ambrose Treacy College Combined Workshop and Concert, individual examinations, as well as services, open mornings and award ceremonies.

Our youngest musicians can now confidently sing in tune and demonstrate the fundamentals of beat and rhythm preparing them for the world of extra-curricular and a lifelong engagement with music. Our middle school students have honed their skills and are starting to establish their unique musical interests and talents. The senior students have become accomplished performers and composers and through their continued involvement in the classroom and extracurricular programs, have developed high level performance skills and knowledge.

Mrs Sue Figliano Head of Music

Ms Shannon Tobin Head of Performance