GCSE Art- Art teachers or children taking Art

[Just2MoreSeasons]

My dd, year 10, is taking the Art GCSE with OCR exam board.

She has submitted quite a few pieces of work now (she is completely up to date with her pieces) and is claiming not to have received any feedback (other than "hmmm" "that's fine" and "not sure about that".

I also cant figure out if the teacher is actually teaching them how to improve their art. Dd claims they haven't been shown how to draw grid lines or perspective.

Her last school report said she was achieving grade 7 and that she has a challenge grade of grade 7.

Is this lack of feedback typical?

Id have thought that without constructive criticism and a few pointers. that if you just keep doing what you're doing that you'll just keep getting the grade you're getting!

Dd doesn't want me to ask her art teacher (she hates drawing attention to herself).

I'm wondering if I should get her a tutor for a few sessions to give her some feedback on how to improve.

Any thoughts please?

Gentle bump for the evening crowd

l used to teach Art GCSE.

First term in Year 10 was workshops revisiting all basic skills like colour, form, tone, 3d perspective, textiles.

During lessons l would do individual tutorials with students where ld write down what we discussed and they’d sign and date it with a target for the next fortnight ( I tried to see them all once a fortnijght)

Homeowrk was done weekly and always marked

Coirseowrk was handed in at the end of each project, marked with a GCSE grade, suggestions for improvement and what was successful.

All of my students knew exactly where they were and how to improve at any time. They also knew where they stood in regards to grades and GCSE.

Ofsted are keen on this. Your daughter isn’t being taught properly.

Thankyou so much for this. I was hung into the fact that kids don't always tell you the whole story and that I must be misunderstanding it.

But your experience is so different to what we are getting. My dd can't have got all of that wrong.

I think I need to make an appointment and see what the teacher says. I really don't want to be confrontational about it but what I really want to say is " are you actually doing any teaching" 😂 (I'll be much more nuanced than that. I know teachers don't have it easy)
Thanks again.

Art is so weird. People expect them to be able to just do it without being taught anything.

Ours were doing their own individual projects at this time so less actual teaching of skills. I’d still show them anything individually though.

Every student is entitled to regular and informative assessment. It’s in the teaching standards.

We used to do peer assessment too. That helps them understand where they should be.

I’d recommend printing out the OCR GCSE specs
https://www.ocr.org.uk/Images/220463-specification-accredited-gcse-art-and-design-j170-j176.pdf
Keep it handy (although maybe not in the sketchbook) and refer to it regarding the assessment objectives expected within each component.

It helps to see previous students work too - search grade 9 gcse art on you tube and see the quality of work to achieve a high grade, there’s some incredible sketchbooks and how they developed & refined their ideas to the final exam.

Thanks @Clemmie4 and @ArseInTheCoOpWindow
Have printed the syllabus out now and found some portfolios on Tik tok for inspiration.

I don't think she is getting much feedback at all. And I don't think her paintings (lovely though they are and better than anything I could do) are progressing.

I'm biding my time a little, will watch and wait and then if no more profession is happening I'll make an appointment.

One more question if I may! Should they be encouraged to trace? Here's this weeks homework

Select one of your A5 initial composition plans to work up to A4 size. Ensure this is accurately and neatly drawn (trace from your photos to ensure this).

Just ask the teacher, they won’t mind as long as you stay respectful which I’m sure you will

Also check school website as most publish their marking and feedback policy as some schools have moved completely away from written feedback as their cohorts of children never read them

Ugh no. No tracing.

Also this encourages the use of outlines which are a big no no.

Nothing about annotation on the homework?Also it about development so why are they just drawing something g at a bigger scale? It serves no purpose. They should be developing an idea from A5 to A4 not just reproducing it. The only time to use repetition is in printing. Also ‘neat’ makes me feel a bit ill

I never allowed tracing unless it was for printing or repeat patterns.

My experience of kids doing art gcse is that it is extremely formulaic. The art teacher knows what is required for a 9.All the kids do exactly the same pieces as everyone else in the class and year after year. The only difference is in the amount of effort they put into their work books.

No, that wasn’t my teaching experience at all. Everyone did completely different things to
each other and year after year. This is where creativity comes in.

All coursework is moderated. The moderator would pick up on this.

Thanks for your thoughts everyone.
@BigSilly I don't think the school is working to a formula (or not in that way). I only know 3 children in the class and they are all doing different themes-hands, outer space, animals.

@ArseInTheCoOpWindow my mouth literally dropped open at 'trace' - I mean they can't do that in the 10 hour exam so why wouldn't they practice their drawing skills before the exam? I hadn't even noticed the word 'neat' but yes you make a good point!

I know I need to go in and talk to them but 1) dd doesn't want me to so I'm negotiating a bit and 2) I really don't know a lot about art, much less GCSE Art and the corresponding skills that are needed.

It's really helpful to talk to you lovely people about it so I can try to verbalise why I'm uncomfortable with what's going on. I really do appreciate your thoughts.

@ArseInTheCoOpWindow I don't suppose you do any art tutoring or know someone who does? I think we could do with just a few sessions to get some good feedback about how to improve (and compliments for confidence too!)

According to JCQ, subjects with NEAs are not supposed to give individual students specific feedback about their projects. You’re only supposed to give general feedback to the class as a whole. Yes this seemingly goes against almost everything Ofsted wants.

You’re also not supposed to give them exact marks from the grading grid. Once they have exact marks they technically are not allowed to add or improve anything in the project.

The problem with this is that the whole of GCSE Art (both Component 1 and Component 2) are NEAs. A lot of teachers just give verbal feedback to get around this and avoid giving written feedback. Is the teacher perhaps giving general feedback to the whole class verbally?

PS. NEA stands for non-examination assessment. Technically even the 10 hour art exam is a NEA as all candidates don’t do the exam at exactly the same time.

PPS. Tracing is not banned in the art exam, but normal tracing usually looks obvious and really rubbish. If you banned tracing you’d have to ban monoprinting and dry point intaglio using plastic and all manner of other legit processes, so that wouldn’t work.

@TiredArtTeacher thanks so much for your explanation.
We aren't with JCQ but OCR, but what you've described does seem to fit. She has had a little verbal feedback today, it was a nice compliment but still no thoughts on how to improve. This teacher is in her first year of teaching (I think)- maybe she's following the 'rules' about general feedback only. That would make sense.

Dd is no longer enjoying art. Tears tonight. Clearly wants me to back off. Thinks it's rude and pushy to ask her teacher more than one question. I just want her to ask "is this in line with what you're expecting" and are there any improvements you could suggest"? 🤷‍♀️

She has double art tomorrow so will see what tomorrow brings.

I'm so grateful to be able to talk it through (with someone who's not crying 😉)

JCQ stands for Joint Council for Qualifications and they are in charge of all 8 of the main exam boards and all subjects, so those rules apply to OCR as well.

If the teacher is new and your daughter is a 7, the teacher might not be confident enough to suggest things to improve, to be honest. A 7 is an old A so it’s pretty good. (An 8 is an old A* and a 9 is beyond what you’d expect a GCSE student to be able to produce, if that makes sense.)

Thinking back to when I started, I probably would have been overly nice about that level and might have felt like I was nitpicking to suggest improvements. Obviously I was wrong, but it took me a while to get used to suggesting improvements to good student in exam groups. (Not anymore, haha!) I didn’t have exam groups on my own at first though, I shared them, so no harm done.

Thankyou @TiredArtTeacher apologies for bring dim!! It just seemed like an acronym for exam board - I think I was mixing it up with JMB from when I was at school a looog time ago!

I see what you mean about the newly qualified teacher. She's likely still finding her feet with it.

I'm going to send a little 'anything we can focus on?' Email and continue to support with ideas at home.

Can't thank you and everyone else enough 🌺