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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

GCSE Art in Interior Design

4 replies

Paintpower · 06/08/2025 07:17

My son took his options this year and it made me realise that whilst I’m quite “arty”, there are no GCSE Art options that I would’ve wanted to take.
Would it be viable to create an interior design option?
It seems easily as useful as the current options in terms of real life application, jobs etc but maybe it’s not meaty enough to be an actual GCSE? Can any art teachers advise?
Surely it compares to the current options - it would be fascinating and would support a whole industry that seems underrepresented by the current GCSE-
Fine Art, Photography, Graphic Communication, Textile Design, and Three-Dimensional Design

OP posts:
Cornishmumofone · 06/08/2025 07:33

It’s possible to take an NCFE Level 2 in Creative Craft (Interiors). That’s a GCSE level qualification that’s offered by some colleges.

There’s enough of a struggle to recruit qualified teachers for the other options listed, and most schools won’t want to diversify their offering for quite a niche subject.

Paintpower · 06/08/2025 07:40

Thanks for this, really helpful. Was forgetting about the recruitment side too.

OP posts:
MumbleBumbleAppleCrumble · 06/08/2025 19:19

It’s important to remember that GCSE art, and all GCSEs are only building blocks towards something else - A-levels through to PhDs or apprenticeships, etc. They help teach you a few of the fundamentals and to engage you and help you think about where, if anywhere, you might want to take those things you are good at and which interest you. Nowadays GCSE’s in themselves don’t really lead into anything particular except the next rung on the learning ladder.

Just as with something like maths, if you choose to take it forwards you could end up being an accountant or a pilot or an astrophysicist. It sets some very basic foundations.

And foundations are really important. They open up options without shutting other things out.

It’s that thing they say about learning to become a circus clown, you first have to master all the other elements - juggling, tightrope, etc - before you then think about becoming a clown and looking at how to do those things wrong to make them look funny!

To be an interior designer, having a background in things like drawing, painting, art history, even sculpture and other areas is really important.

Post A-level the general art route is to a year’s foundation course. That’s when you start to think about direction. You (generally) spend the first term or so dipping your toe in different disciplines - painting, sculpture, design, fashion, set design, photography, illustration, etc. etc. - and then think about what area to focus on in the last part. That then can lead to a degree in that specialism - interior design or whatever.

There are other less academic routes (apprenticeships somewhere or just trying to start a career, etc) but they might be a harder thing to achieve as you would need good connections and would be competing in a crowded market against people better qualified. But even if you found an apprenticeship, they would almost certainly value that wider breadth of knowledge an art GCSE would bring over something that specialised so early.

My advice at GCSE level is to cast as wide a net as possible and keep options open, rather than looking towards the specific, especially focusing on a specific career.

autumn1610 · 06/08/2025 19:30

I studied interior design at university…if your going that route it is not cushions and colours and the fluffy bits. It’s more interior architecture. Basically the fluff stuff was referred to as styling. So general art is good, you need to be able to draw(ish) you actually didn’t even need to be good at drawing, just be able to get your ideas down, a lot of it is on computers now too. We mostly learnt to make models, learnt of to hand draft plans, sketch out ideas, learnt how to space plan, importance of lighting, materials Etc, designing to regulations and then generate the ideas into 3D modelling and do CAD drawings. Some people came from a foundation year where they studied interior design. My a-levels the only design base I had was textiles. The job market back when I graduated was shite and very few people out of my year have continued on in the field. I really don’t think it is an area that is under represented in GCSE as we all came through wildly different ways with different creative qualifications under our belt

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