Art Department
The Art department at John Spence is a busy and active area sited in its own specialist arts building at the rear of the school. It has a good reputation for its contribution to the school, its wider and local community and with providing arts access for all age groups. There are strong and active links with Galleries and museums in the region and regular visits from practicing artists. We have a flourishing partnership with Northumbria University supporting and mentoring Student on their PGCE programme.
We have adult art classes in the evening and art clubs for older and younger pupils.
We provide a broad variety of activities covering a generous range of 2D and 3D work and are very open to developing new projects and ideas. We take creative risks and strive to provide a rich creative and visually stimulating environment.
We teach in four well equipped and resourced Art rooms one of which is our ICT facility. There are two general purpose art studios and a specialist 3D room. We have a well equipped kiln room and a dark room as well as good storage and display areas. The area has its own foyer shared with Performing Arts and there is a good drama studio set in the centre of the building.
How is the Department Staffed?
There are two full time art teachers; Mr Gillespie and Ms Creigh as well as some additional lessons taught by Miss Bryson. There are often ITT students on Placement and artists visiting
How are the classes and groups organised in lessons?
All the Year 7 & Year 8 classes are taught in form groups for their art lessons The Year 9 students are organised into Mixed Ability Groups. In Year 10 & Year 11 we have two courses running. One provides AQA GCSE Art & Design for students to chose. The other course is Edexcel BTEC First Diploma.
For our wider community, during the evenings, we provide Fine Art Evening Classes as well as a Pottery class on a different evening. The department is committed to Life Long Learning, is eager to work with other schools and departments and provides a safe, welcoming and supportive area for children and adults.
