Art and Design at Telford Park School is a very thought provoking subject. It asks pupils to look at the world more carefully than they normally would, to make something with their own hands, and to say why they made it that way.
Pupils work in sketchbooks from their first week in Year 7. A technique is shown, tried and practised on its own before it is used inside a larger piece, so that nobody is wrestling with a new skill and a big idea at the same time.
Pupils meet colour theory and Cubism in Year 7, street art and Pop Art in Year 8, and print making and portraiture in Year 9, before choosing Fine Art or Photography at GCSE. Along the way they learn something that outlasts any one piece of work: how to look at something closely, how to change your mind, and how to keep going when a first attempt fails.