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Cowra High School

Cowra High School

Knowledge is Power

Telephone6342 1766

Emailcowra-h.school@det.nsw.edu.au

Creative arts

CAPA

 Years 7-10

Study in the Creative Arts provides students with strong, discipline based knowledge and the fundamental skills, creative expertise, learning mindset and critical capabilities for the future world of work. Creative Arts students experience and develop the complex skills required to create and test ideas, generate creative works with confidence, shape inquiry and critically evaluate and reflect on what they do. Study in the Creative Arts prepares students to be significant producers and informed consumers of culture.

Years 7-10:

Music

All students should have the opportunity to develop their musical abilities and potential. As an artform, music pervades society and occupies a significant place in world cultures and in the oral and recorded history of all civilisations. Music plays important roles in the social, cultural, aesthetic and spiritual lives of people. At an individual level, music is a medium of personal expression. It enables the sharing of ideas, feelings and experiences. The nature of musical study also allows students to develop their capacity to manage their own learning, engage in problem-solving, work collaboratively and engage in activity that reflects the real world practice of performers, composers and audiences.

Visual Arts

Visual Arts provides opportunities for students to enjoy the making and studying of art. It builds an understanding of the role of art in all forms of media, both in the contemporary and historical world, and enables students to represent their ideas and interests in artworks. Visual Arts enables students to become informed about, understand and write about their contemporary world.

Year 9-10:

Photographic and Digital Media

Photographic and Digital Media provides opportunities for students to enjoy making and studying a range of photographic and digital media works. It enables students to represent their ideas and interests about the world, to engage in contemporary forms of communication and understand and write about their contemporary world. Photographic and Digital Media enables students to investigate new technologies, cultural identity and the evolution of photography and digital media into the 21st century. Students are provided with opportunities to make and study photographic and digital media works in greater depth and breadth than through the Visual Arts elective course.

Drama

Drama enables young people to develop knowledge, understanding and skills individually and collaboratively to make, perform and appreciate dramatic and theatrical works. Students take on roles as a means of exploring both familiar and unfamiliar aspects of their world while exploring the ways people react and respond to different situations, issues and ideas.

Course requirements

Years 7-10:    

Music - The Music Years 7–10 Syllabus contains both Mandatory and Elective courses.  Music may be studied as an elective in Stage 5 for either 100 or 200 hours.

Visual ArtsThe Visual Arts Years 7–10 Syllabus contains both Mandatory and Elective courses. Visual Arts may be studied as an elective in Stage 5 for either 100 or 200 hours.

Photographic and Digital Media – Photographic and Digital Media is an elective course that can be studied for 100 or 200    hours at any time after the completion of the Visual Arts 100-hour mandatory course in Stage 4.

Students are required to produce a Photographic and Digital Media portfolio and keep a Photographic and Digital Media journal.

Drama - Students may undertake either 100 or 200 hours of study in Drama in Stage 5 as an elective.

 Years 11 and 12

Study in the Creative Arts provides students with strong, discipline based knowledge and the fundamental skills, creative expertise, learning mindset and critical capabilities for the future world of work. Creative Arts students experience and develop the complex skills required to create and test ideas, generate creative works with confidence, shape inquiry and to critically evaluate and reflect on what they do. Study in the Creative Arts prepares students to be significant producers and informed consumers of culture.

Students can select from a range of board developed courses, including:

Drama

Students in Drama study the practices of Making, Performing and Critically Studying. While the course builds on the Stage 5 Drama course, it also caters for students with less experience in Drama.

Year 11 Students engage with these components through collaborative and individual experiences.

Year 11 course content comprises an interaction between the components of Improvisation, Playbuilding and Acting, Elements of Production in Performance, and Theatrical Traditions and Performance Styles. Learning comes from practical experiences in each of these areas.

Year 12 students study Australian Drama and Theatre, and Studies in Drama and Theatre involve the theoretical study through practical exploration of themes, issues, styles and movements of traditions of theatre, exploring relevant acting techniques, performance styles and spaces.

Photography, Video and Digital Media

This course provides students with the opportunity to develop their knowledge, skills and understanding through the making of photographs, and/or film and other time-based works and/or digital images that lead to and demonstrate conceptual and technical accomplishment. Critical and historical investigations of the work of artists/photographers/filmmakers are considered and used to inform student photographic and digital artmaking practices.

Photography, Video and Digital Imaging offers students the opportunity to explore contemporary artistic practices that make use of photography, video and digital imaging. These fields of artistic practice resonate within students' experience and understanding of the world and are highly relevant to contemporary ways of interpreting the world. The course offers opportunities for investigation of one or more of these fields and develops students' understanding and skills, which contribute to an informed critical practice. 

The course is designed to enable students to gain an increasing accomplishment and independence in their representation of ideas in the fields of photography and/or video and/or digital imaging and understand and value how these fields of practice invite different interpretations and explanations. 

Students develop knowledge, understanding and skills through the making of photographs, and/or videos and/or digital images that lead to and demonstrate conceptual and technical accomplishment.

They also develop knowledge, understanding and skills that lead to increasingly accomplished critical and historical investigations of photography and/or video and/or digital imaging.

Music 1

While the course builds on the Stages 4 and 5 Music course, Music 1 provides an alternative course of study to Music 2. The curriculum structure is adaptable enough to meet the needs and interests of students with varying degrees of prior formal and informal learning in music and caters for students with less experience in Music.

In the Year 11 course, students study the concepts of music through the learning experiences of performance, composition, musicology and aural within the context of a range of styles, periods and genres.

Students study three topics in the Year 11 course. Topics are chosen from a list of 21 topics which covers a broad range of styles, periods and genres.

In the HSC course, students study the concepts of music through the learning experiences of performance, composition, musicology and aural within the context of a range of styles, periods and genres.

Students study three topics in the HSC course which are different from those studied in the Preliminary course or two topics which are different from those studied in the Preliminary course and one topic from the Preliminary course in greater depth exploring new repertoire and including a comparative study. Topics are chosen from a list of 21 topics which covers a broad range of styles, periods and genres.

In addition to core studies in performance, composition, musicology and aural, students select three electives from any combination of performance, composition and musicology. These electives must represent each of the three topics studied in the course.

Visual Arts

Visual Arts involves students in artmaking, art criticism and art history. Students critically and historically investigate artworks, critics, historians and artists from Australia as well as those from other cultures, traditions and times. Students develop their own artworks, culminating in a 'body of work' in the HSC course.

The Year 11 course is broadly focused, while the HSC course provides for deeper and more complex investigations.

Preliminary course learning opportunities focus on:

§  the nature of practice in artmaking, art criticism and art history through different investigations

§  the role and function of artists, artworks, the world and audiences in the artworld

§  the different ways the visual arts may be interpreted and how students might develop their own informed points of view

§  how students may develop meaning and focus and interest in their work

§  building understandings over time through various investigations and working in different forms.

While the course builds on Visual Arts courses in Stages 4 and 5, it also caters for students with less experience in Visual Arts.

HSC course learning opportunities focus on:

§  how students may develop their practice in artmaking, art criticism and art history

§  how students may develop their own informed points of view in increasingly independent ways and use different interpretive frameworks in their investigations

§  how students may learn about the relationships between artists, artworks, the world and audiences within the artworld and apply these to their own investigations

§  how students may further develop meaning and focus in their work.

Course requirements

Years 11-12:

Drama - The Year 11 course informs learning in the HSC course. In the study of theoretical components, students engage in practical workshop activities and performances to assist their understanding, analysis and synthesis of material covered in areas of study.

In preparing for the group performance, the published Course Prescriptions include a topic list which is used as a starting point.

The Individual Project is negotiated between the student and the teacher at the beginning of the HSC course. Students choosing Individual Project Design or Critical Analysis must base their work on one of the texts listed in the published text list. This list changes every three years.

Students must ensure that they do not choose a text or topic they are studying in Drama in the written component or in any other HSC course when choosing Individual Projects.

Students selecting Drama are required to keep a logbook of the development of each of the components Group Performance and Individual Project.

Photography - Students are required to keep portfolio throughout the course.

Music 1 - Students selecting Music 1 are required to keep a portfolio of the development of each of the components Core Composition and Elective Composition.

Visual Arts – Students are required to;

§  develop a body of work and use of a process diary

§  complete a minimum of five case studies (4–10 hours each)