The Arts

Reflection

The Key features of the Arts

Children are not worried about being wrong.

Creativity can be defined as 'the process of having original ideas that have value' - Sir Ken Robinson.

Creativity happens through interaction of different disciplinary ways of seeing things. 

Our task is to educate their whole being

Planning examples for The Arts

Dance

Dance is expressive movement that has intent, purpose, and form. In dance education, students integrate thinking, moving, and feeling. They explore and use dance elements, vocabularies, processes, and technologies to express personal, group, and cultural identities, to convey and interpret artistic ideas, and to strengthen social interaction. Students develop literacy in dance as they learn about, and develop skills in, performing, choreographing, and responding to a variety of genres from a range of historical and contemporary contexts. 

Strands:

Understanding the Arts in Context

Developing Practical Knowledge in the arts, 

Developing Ideas in the arts,

Communicating and Interpreting in the arts. 

The achievement objectives for each discipline reflect its distinct body of knowledge and practices. By building on and revisiting learning from previous levels, arts programmes in each discipline provide progressions of learning opportunities in all four strands. This spiral process ensures that students’ learning is relevant, in-depth, and meaningful. 

Drama

Drama expresses human experience through a focus on role, action, and tension, played out in time and space. In drama education, students learn to structure these elements and to use dramatic conventions, techniques, and technologies to create imagined worlds. Through purposeful play, both individual and collaborative, they discover how to link imagination, thoughts, and feelings.

As students work with drama techniques, they learn to use spoken and written language with increasing control and confidence and to communicate effectively using body language, movement, and space. As they perform, analyse, and respond to different forms of drama and theatre, they gain a deeper appreciation of their rich cultural heritage and language and new power to examine attitudes, behaviours, and values.

By means of the drama that they create and perform, students reflect and enrich the cultural life of their schools, whānau, and communities.

Strands:

Understanding the Arts in Context

Developing Practical Knowledge in the arts, 

Developing Ideas in the arts,

Communicating and Interpreting in the arts. 

The achievement objectives for each discipline reflect its distinct body of knowledge and practices. By building on and revisiting learning from previous levels, arts programmes in each discipline provide progressions of learning opportunities in all four strands. This spiral process ensures that students’ learning is relevant, in-depth, and meaningful. 

Music 

Sound from natural, acoustic, and digital environments is the source material for expressive ideas in music. These ideas are manipulated and extended into forms, genres, and styles that are recognised as music. Music is a fundamental form of expression, both personal and cultural. Value is placed upon the musical heritages of New Zealand’s diverse cultures, including traditional and contemporary Māori musical arts. By making, sharing, and responding to music, students contribute to the cultural life of their schools, whānau, peer groups, and communities. As they engage with and develop knowledge and deeper understandings of music, they draw on cultural practices and on histories, theories, structures, technologies, and personal experiences.

In music education, students work individually and collaboratively to explore the potential of sounds and technologies for creating, interpreting, and representing music ideas. As they think about and explore innovative sound and media, students have rich opportunities to further their own creative potential.

Students develop literacies in music as they listen and respond, sing, play instruments, create and improvise, read symbols and notations, record sound and music works, and analyse and appreciate music. This enables them to develop aural and theoretical skills and to value and understand the expressive qualities of music.

As students learn to communicate musically with increasing sophistication, they lay a foundation for lifelong enjoyment of and participation in music. Some will go on to take courses in musicology, performance, or composition. These may be steps on the way to music-related employment.

Strands:

Understanding the Arts in Context

Developing Practical Knowledge in the arts, 

Developing Ideas in the arts,

Communicating and Interpreting in the arts. 

The achievement objectives for each discipline reflect its distinct body of knowledge and practices. By building on and revisiting learning from previous levels, arts programmes in each discipline provide progressions of learning opportunities in all four strands. This spiral process ensures that students’ learning is relevant, in-depth, and meaningful. 

visual arts

Through engaging in the visual arts, students learn how to discern, participate in, and celebrate their own and others’ visual worlds. Visual arts learning begins with children’s curiosity and delight in their senses and stories and extends to communication of complex ideas and concepts. An understanding of Māori visual culture is achieved through exploration of Māori contexts. The arts of European, Pasifika, Asian, and other cultures add significant dimensions to New Zealand visual culture.

In visual arts education, students develop visual literacy and aesthetic awareness as they manipulate and transform visual, tactile, and spatial ideas to solve problems. They explore experiences, stories, abstract concepts, social issues, and needs, both individually and collaboratively. They experiment with materials, using processes and conventions to develop their visual enquiries and create both static and time-based art works. They view art works, bringing their own experiences, sharing their responses, and generating multiple interpretations. Their meaning making is further informed by investigation of the contexts in which art works are created, used, and valued. As they develop their visual literacy, students are able to engage with a wider range of art experiences in increasingly complex and conscious ways.

The visual arts develop students’ conceptual thinking within a range of practices across drawing, sculpture, design, painting, printmaking, photography, and moving image. Art history may include a study of theories of the arts, architecture, and design. Theoretical investigations also inform practical enquiry. Opportunities to explore and communicate in the visual arts continue to expand as technologies and multi-disciplinary practices evolve.

Strands:

Understanding the Arts in Context

Developing Practical Knowledge in the arts, 

Developing Ideas in the arts,

Communicating and Interpreting in the arts. 

The achievement objectives for each discipline reflect its distinct body of knowledge and practices. By building on and revisiting learning from previous levels, arts programmes in each discipline provide progressions of learning opportunities in all four strands. This spiral process ensures that students’ learning is relevant, in-depth, and meaningful.