HENRY COMPTON SCHOOL
THE ART AND DESIGN DEPARTMENT
The post requires an able, energetic person prepared to enthuse students with a respect and
love for the subject. Art occupies an important place in the school’s curriculum and the
successful candidate should be prepared to work within a department framework and policy
that significantly contributes to the ethos of the school community life. Art department staff
work to establish the importance of the creative arts within the school as a whole and, in
doing so, take account of the wide cultural influences within the community. The department
regularly enters pupil’s work for competitions and examinations. This is part of the
Department’s commitment to widening participation and developing art and design within the
community context.
The art teaching accommodation consists of four studios plus one Apple Mac Suite. The
studios are equipped with facilities for three dimensional work, painting and printmaking.
Two-dimensional work includes drawing with a wide range of media, painting, collage, graphic
design, printing, decorative design and the use of photography as well as photographic
processes such as photomontage. Three-dimensional work can involve the making of
sculpture, constructions, and assemblages, using varied every day found materials and
popular materials such as plaster, metal and clay. The art & design rooms also have
interactive white boards.
The department ensures close monitoring and assessment of student’s performance and
ability. Art awards are given for high performance and effort. Internal examinations take
place regularly throughout Years 7 – 11. The current GCSE examination syllabus and
programme have been designed to meet the requirements of the London Examinations
EDEXEL examination. There is traditionally a high take up for GCSE Art in Years 10 and 11
with a long tradition of excellence at this standard. Strong links exist with post-16 educational
institutions including the local Sixth Form College
The department emphasises the fundamental importance of direct experience through which
skills, concepts and values central to art education are developed. Recognised, encouraged
and celebrated are the myriad of forms that art and art practice can take. Contextual and
critical studies, an appreciation of meaning, function and purposes are seen integral to art
practice. All teaching aims to develop powers of observation, visual awareness and
discrimination and develop abilities to communicate and express ideas and feelings through
the use of observation, memory and imagination.
This is an exciting time for the department as it becomes part of the new Creative
Technologies department which will encompass Design Technology, Art and Construction
and will contribute fully to the curriculum delivery in both Fulham College Boys’ School and
the new Fulham Enterprise Studio (FES), opening in September 2012, FES will be the first
Studio School to open in inner London and will offer learners the opportunity to follow
vocational courses in either Construction or Production Arts ( including modules on Set
Design, Lighting, Sound, Events Promotion) as well as their core curriculum with a strong
emphasis on Business and developing employability skills. FES is not just about what is
taught but the way it is delivered.
Contributions by way of exhibitions, displays, murals and other aesthetic inputs, are regularly
made to school life. The department responds to requests for promotional and newsworthy
material, for example, text and imagery for school news broadsheets. Advice on aesthetic
matters is often sought from the department.
Homework is seen by art staff as important in developing and extending students’ abilities to
think and reason in art and in promoting confidence to carry out independent research and
study. The department’s Art Club evenings offer opportunities to extend individual abilities
based around visual enquiry and enable all to meet homework, coursework and examination
work requirements.
Candidates are very welcome to visit the department and should telephone the school to
make an appointment.