Explain the pattern of study for stage 4, what students learn about and concepts that they focus on.

The Mandatory 100 hours in Stage 4 (Years 7 and 8).

Students learn about the pleasure and enjoyment of making different kinds of artworks in 2D, 3D and/or 4D forms. They learn to represent their ideas and interests with reference to contemporary trends and how artists’ including painters, sculptors, architects, designers, photographers and ceramists, make artworks .

Students learn about how art is shaped by different beliefs, values and meanings by exploring artists and artworks from different times and places and relationships in the artworld between the artist – artwork – world – audience. They also explore how their own lives and experiences can influence their artmaking and critical and historical studies.

Explain the pattern of study for stage 5, what students learn about and concepts that they focus on.

The Visual Arts Years 7–10 Syllabus contains both Mandatory and Elective courses. This is a requirement for eligibility for the award of the Record of School Achievement. The Elective course can be studied for 100 or 200 hours in Stage 5 (Years 9 and 10).

Students learn about the pleasure and enjoyment of making different kinds of artworks in 2D, 3D and/or 4D forms. They learn to represent their ideas and interests with reference to contemporary trends and how artists’ including painters, sculptors, architects, designers, photographers and ceramists, make artworks .

Students learn about how art is shaped by different beliefs, values and meanings by exploring artists and artworks from different times and places and relationships in the artworld between the artist – artwork – world – audience. They also explore how their own lives and experiences can influence their artmaking and critical and historical studies.  

Visual Arts involves students in artmaking, art criticism and art history. Students develop their own artworks, culminating in a ‘Body of Work’ in the Higher School Certificate course. Students critically and historically investigate artworks, critics, historians and artists from Australia as well as those from other cultures, traditions and times. The Year 11 course is broadly focused, while the Higher School Certificate course provides for deeper and more complex investigations. While the course builds on Visual Arts courses in Stages 4 and 5, it also caters for students with more limited experience in Visual Arts.

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 will develop knowledge, skills and understanding through the making of photographs, and/or videos and/or digital images that lead to and demonstrate conceptual and technical accomplishment. They will also develop knowledge, skills and understanding that lead to increasingly accomplished critical and historical investigations of photography and/or video and/or digital imaging.

You do not need to follow an artistic career . If you choose to study Visual Arts it opens up an ability to analyse any situation. An ability to discuss every aspect of a topic while keeping an open mind. Creative arts teaches you to ask questions rather than accept other opinions.

However, if you wish to follow a creative career, then opportunities are vast. Career opportunities in architecture, graphic design, interior design, or, a working, exhibiting artist. Teaching in secondary school or tutoring in university of course. TAFE diploma opportunities in floristry, landscape design or graphics can be used as a bridging to University studies in art theory or design.

VAPD - Visual Arts Process Diary -

BOW - Body of Work (Stage 6)

Art History- places art in the context of time and place in order to further  understand its meaning and merits.

Art Making - involves the manipulation of art materials.

Art Criticism - judges the meaning and merit of art and gives it cultural and/or economic   value. Successful art practice uses both The Frames and Conceptual Framework.