In the arts we are enjoying the experience of teaching and learning practical work again. Our students are doing a range of activities including; printing, perspective, painting, playing instruments, playing in ensembles and performing in front of an audience.
Music
Music students have long suffered from not being able to play in ensembles, and that has had a negative effect on how they engage with music. Playing standards have been lowered due to the current expectations.
In order to change that, KS3 is now doing band practice for term 2, where students have to choose an instrument to learn, form a band and choose a song to learn and perform in front of an audience.
Technology is playing a major role in assisting these students, as they use a play along website with all the necessary resources to enable them to learn songs and play along as bands.
They are very excited to be able to play their favourite songs with their classmates.
Our ECA Rock Band is back as well with over 16 students, who are very excited and keen to rock out. They are learning how to play the Blues and how to improvise.
Despite the challenging times, BCB is managing to keep music alive.
Art
In art we are enjoying being back to teaching practical work again. In year 8 our students are finishing off their lino prints. They were inspired by different images of bugs from which they created pattern designs to use for their prints. The technique they are using is reduction lino printing. This involved them engraving a design into a piece of lino and then printing it six times. They then engraved more and printed on top of their original print with a second colour. This process can be repeated for as many colours as are required for the design. Once completed we will be going on to looking at Dada and creating photomontages about an issue in the world which is important to the individual student.
In other year groups our year 9 students are combining perspective drawing with painting techniques and year 7 are working in the style of different artists.
