Expressive Arts

Vision:

The Expressive Arts play an exciting, dynamic and integral role to the educational experience of our learners. Through involvement in the Expressive Arts, we believe our learners can develop a wide range of qualities such as passion, ambition, cooperation and enthusiasm. All our learners will have access to a broad range of rich opportunities and experiences, so that they might discover and develop their own individual talents and interests and to foster confidence, self-expression and a growth mindset. These experiences will provide inspiration, challenge and entertainment and will help learners develop perceptual, physical, communication and creative skills. The Expressive Arts are a powerful and emotive medium through which learners can explore both Wales and the wider world, developing a sense of cynefin as well as an understanding and appreciation of other societies and cultures.   

The dynamic nature of the Expressive Arts can engage and motivate learners and so encourage them to develop their creative, artistic and performance skills. 

  The Expressive Arts Area of Learning and Experience centres on the five disciplines of art, dance, drama, film and digital media, and music. While these disciplines have a common creative process and share transferable skills, each has its own discrete body of knowledge and set of discernible skills. This area of learning and experience will ensure that learners are entitled to access all five disciplines.  

Theses can all include the following 3 ‘what matter’s’ statements; 

Explore 

Exploration through and of the Expressive Arts deepens our artistic knowledge and contributes to our understanding of identities, cultures and societies 

Respond 

Responding and reflecting, both as artist and audience, is a fundamental part of learning about and through the Expressive Arts 

Create 

Creative work combines knowledge and skills using inspiration and imagination 

Brynllywarch Hall School will provide learners with a variety of experiences through which they can gain an understanding and an appreciation of each topic. During Expressive Arts experiences, learners will be physically, socially and emotionally engaged, and as a result their well-being, self-esteem and resilience will be nurtured. This in turn will enhance their self-confidence. We have a designated Music house, a green screen room and specialist staff who engage and motivate the students.  

Exploring the expressive arts is essential to developing artistic skills and knowledge and it enables learners to become curious and creative individuals. 

Exploring this Area, both through their own creative work and other people’s, engages learners with genres, techniques, tools, materials and practices and enables them to become curious and creative individuals. 

By exploring forms and disciplines in the expressive arts, whether through experimentation, play or formal research and inquiry, learners can develop an understanding of how the expressive arts communicate through visual, physical, verbal, musical and technological means. This exploration can also progress their understanding of how the expressive arts shape ideas and feelings. It can encourage them to develop their imagination and draw upon their own experiences, skills and talents to become creative artists themselves. 

The expressive arts are also a powerful medium through which learners can explore Wales and its unique traditions and diverse cultures. They can provide opportunities for learners to explore their own cultural heritage and that of other people, places and times, and through this discover how the expressive arts can be used to shape and express personal, social and cultural identities. Learners can also explore how the expressive arts can be used to question and challenge viewpoints and be a force for personal and societal change. 

Responding and reflecting, both as artist and audience, is a fundamental part of learning in the expressive arts. 

Responding within the expressive arts engages the emotions and the intellect. Response may be a simple sensory reaction to artistic stimulus or a critical analysis of creative work. The ability to reflect is deepened as learners increase their knowledge and understanding of how and why creative work is developed and produced. 

Adopting the skills and critical vocabulary encountered in this Area can equip learners to consider creative work in a range of media, forms, genres and styles

Learning the important skills of refinement and analysis can contribute to their creative development. 

Learners’ resilience can also be developed when they are encouraged to identify how they can improve their work and respond to feedback from others. 

The act of responding encouraged by engagement in this Area challenges learners to reflect on the effectiveness of their own work and that of others, including the work of artists from Wales and beyond. 

Creating combines skills and knowledge, drawing on the senses, inspiration and imagination. 

By engaging with this Area, learners will be given opportunities to be innovative and bold, to create individual work and to develop their own identity as artists in Wales. This learning and experience can foster resilience and flexibility to overcome challenges. 

Creating in the expressive arts embraces a range of activities including planning, drafting, designing, making, choreographing, shaping, composing and editing. Creating requires learners to develop and demonstrate control of a range of skills and an application of knowledge. 

During the creative process learners communicate through a variety of art forms or disciplines. Communication includes performing, presenting, sharing, exhibiting and producing with consideration of the audience. 

In this Area, learners’ engagement with the creative process can enable them to recognise opportunities to transform their ideas safely and ethically into work which has cultural and commercial value, and to use their creative skills to realise ambitions.