Creative and Performing Arts

Creative and Performing Arts  (CAPA)

This faculty offers our Gifted and Talented students the opportunity to explore their world creatively. In Drama, Music and Visual Arts students learn, create, design, perform, analyse and critique a range of art forms. Students build critical thinking and problem solving skills through engaging in innovative and collaborative learning and practice.  Student work is regularly nominated and selected for OnStage, Encore and Art Express which showcase exemplary HSC major works from across the state

Drama Curriculum

The study of Drama develops students' confidence in speaking and performance skills as well as developing critical and analytical skills. Students work individually and in groups to create drama e.g. through improvisation and scriptwriting. They explore a variety of performance techniques and theatrical conventions and they develop an appreciation of drama and theatre. Participation in workshops, excursions to the theatre and visiting performers enrich student's experience and understanding of Drama.

Drama Courses for Years 7 - 10 (Stage 4 and 5) 

Drama is offered as an elective subject in Years 8, 9 and 10.The junior syllabus is a broad-based study of drama in which students may study:

  • Improvisation and play building
  • Dramatic forms
  • Reading and writing scripts as texts for performance
  • Performance spaces and conventions of theatre
  • Technical aspects of production
  • Experience of dramatic presentations
  • Discussion, reading and writing about drama and theatre

Drama Courses for Years 11 - 12 (Stage 6) 

Drama is offered in Year 11 and Year 12 as a 2-unit HSC course. 

Drama Preliminary Course

The following components are taught in an integrated program:

  • Improvisation
  • Playbuilding and Acting
  • Elements of Production in Performance
  • Theatrical Traditions and Performance Styles

Drama HSC Course

Students undertaking the HSC course will develop an individual project, work collaboratively to develop a group performance and study two topics in Drama and Theatre, one of which will be Australian Drama and Theatre.

Music Curriculum

The Music Faculty offers courses across Year 7-12. A broad tutorial program is available to all students and the department provides a wide range of extra-curricular performance ensemble opportunities. The faculty promotes involvement in an eclectic range of musical styles, allowing students from a wide range of abilities to experience the joy of music through compositions, research and performance.  

Years 7 - 10 (Stages 4 and 5) 

The mandatory course is offered in Year 7 with specific performance areas targeted in keyboard and guitar. Composition is introduced and developed throughout the year. The additional study course is offered in Years 8 - 10 and provides a solid foundation for the preliminary and HSC courses.

Years 11 - 12 (Stage 6)

Music 2 is offered as a preliminary course in Year 11 and as a HSC course in Year 12. The Music Extension course is available in Year 12.

Visual Arts Curriculum

This faculty seeks to contribute to the understanding and appreciation of the visual arts by providing students with a range of classes, exhibitions, excursions, sculpture, photography, graphic and computer generated art. Visual Arts involves students in the practices of art criticism and art history, related to their own art-making.

Years 7 - 10 (Stages 4 and 5) 

Visual Arts

In this course students make personal investigations of subjects, experience a range of media and examine a variety of related art images and objects.

Areas studied are:

  • People – self, family and friends
  • Places – school, camp, home environments, suburban and city environments
  • Objects – from the immediate environment, natural and man made
  • Other Living Things – animals, sea life, imaginary creatures
  • Events - social, cultural and political

Forms included are drawing, painting, collage, printmaking, sculpture, ceramics, photography and computer generated images. 

Years 11 - 12 (Stage 6) 

Visual Arts 

The preliminary course offers broad based experiences in Visual Arts and the HSC course has a more sustained, independent and interpretative focus. Visual Arts involves students in the practices of art making, art criticism and art history. Students develop their own artworks, culminating in a ‘body of work’ in the HSC course that reflects student knowledge and understanding about the practice and which demonstrates their ability to resolve a conceptually strong work. Students critically and historically investigate artworks, critics and historians from Australia as well as those from other cultures, traditions and times.

Visual Design

This is a 1 Unit course offered in Year 11. The Visual Design course encourages students to explore the practices of graphic, wearable, product and interior/exterior designers in contemporary society and promotes imaginative and innovative approaches to design within the context of the Australian international environment.

Photography

This is a 1 Unit course offered in Year 11. The course encourages students to develop skills through the acquisition of the techniques of photography. Students will gain an understanding of careers involving photography and use photography as a means of visual communication and a process to aid observation and analysis. 

1