Cranford Review 2021

#
DIGITAL & VISUAL
100
Digital
& Visual:
An Innovative
and Creative
Curriculum
Digital and Visual is an innovative and creative
curriculum. The effects of lockdown and the
Covid pandemic has not hindered students’
ability to design or be creative. The pandemic meant
that the teachers had to adapt the curriculum plan and
they were still able to implement both Digital and
Visual learning.
The subject teaches students about designing on a
Digital and Visual platform using iPads and PCs as
well as traditional drawing techniques to focus their
designs in response to an industry standard brief.
The students work collaboratively within projects
and develop skills in problem solving and critical
thinking. The curriculum is planned to be skills based
and industry focused to develop our students so that
they are skilled for careers in the future.
2019 was the first year of the Digital and Visual
curriculum and students began building up their skills
following the exciting curriculum plan and then in
March 2020 lockdown hit. The Digital and Visual
staff were quite responsive to this by creating a bank
of online lessons in line with the curriculum plan.
Students were given a choice of digital or visual
responses to the brief depending on the resources that
they had available to them. As a result they were very
creative.
We were lucky that the students could continue
with the creative curriculum on their return in the
summer. Teachers had to implement health and safety
protocols and students were good at following the
new guidelines. The curriculum plan again had to
be amended slightly due to health and safety but
remained innovative and interesting for the students.
During the second lockdown, lessons were taught
through Microsoft Teams using Nearpod. This is
an app where presentations that are creative can
be interactive and allow students to participate and
contribute to class discussions. We also made small
collaborative working groups within Microsoft Teams
which was monitored through channels. All groups
produced creative drawings which were submitted
through assignments in Teams and were given
feedback.
Students worked on Teams remotely to learn about the
main genres in films and conventions of film trailers.
We watched film trailers for Disney’s’ Mulan and The
Lion King and tried to identify the key conventions
in each trailer. The 2nd half of the term we were back
in school and students explored conventions of film
poster which culminated in each student working on
their own theatrical release film poster on the iPads
(using Autodesk Sketchbook). For some students this
was the first time they’d used iPads to create a poster
in a digital format and created some really exciting
posters using the iPads.
Students have learnt a lot about industry and covered
a range of different skills in the Digital and Visual
curriculum even through the pandemic. They have
learnt about careers, marketing, branding, creating a
brand identity, film production, genres, conventions
of a poster, presentation of ideas, story writing,
storyboarding, games design, games mechanics,
drawing features of characters, avatar creation,
Coding, app design, poster illustration, photography,
artist’s analysis, poster analysis, Augmented reality,
collaborative working.
Students have really enjoyed the creativity and
relevance of the Digital and Visual Curriculum and
the department would like to thank the students for
their enthusiasm, continued efforts and excellent
work this year!
Pam Hunt (Head of Art)