James Robinson Art and Design tutor

Top tip for tired GCSE Art teachers:
This time of year, magazines/leaflets are packed with glossy pictures of jewellery and swanky watches. Rip these out and cut them our for students to stick in their sketchbooks and draw the missing segment using contasting tones and clean lines. Super differentiated and quick to prepare, this drawing activity can lead to a longer observational drawing (I used to like sticking broken Christmas decs onto shiny card), cubist portraits, Bridget Riley and/or 'Dazzle Ship' inspired work, Paolozzi or 'automata' themes or simply as a stand-alone activity for the last week of term.

Ceramic and printing workshop slots available for November and December. Discounts for groups and families. Please, DM me or email me - [email protected], if you would like to find out more.

In a GCSE chatroom, an Art and Design HoD asked for advice on how to update a tired KS4 curriculum needing a revamp.

I suggested:
Just suggestions, but 1. Get students to tie small childhood toys into small bunches of twigs with string. They make beautiful observation drawings (you could start with twigs alone as they're easier to draw and contrast beautifully with geometric shapes of toys which they could draw mechanically with ruler/compasses/even coins). 2. Ditch all those artists that you always use as stimuli and use artists from outside Europe/North America - consider looking at mural art from the streets of Valparaiso in Chile; find Eddi Kamuanga Llunga and his peers; South Korean contemporary art is skillful and full of ideas but knocks away at the clichés of the 'west'. I found the Asian Art books in the 'Eye' series blew out many cobwebs when I was forced by geography to shake up my KS4 curriculum (Korean Eye: Contemporary Korean Art is on Amazon - not cheap, but joyous and new); am finally 3. Get 11 students taking photos inspired by global photographers. If a student goggles 'Top 10 - - - - Photographers' inserting a country name of their choice, they'll find fresh stimuli which will take their art into new places for you and them. I've taught in all kinds of different schools and I know some students are more able to grasp the exciting than others, so good luck. Oh, and the recent Sky TV series 'the Last of Us', is based on a computer game popular with many 15 yr olds. The premises of the game is zombie like humans gradually turning into fungus. Mushrooms are very differentiated and getting kids making half-human/half fungi portraits should engage the grumpiness young artists.

Schools too quickly forget that not only is Art and Design a practical subject where GCSE classes shouldn't exceed 22, but it's a creative subject where students' progress and success is dependent upon regular individual conversations between teacher and student.
One teacher recently posted that her new GCSE class was going to contain 30 students. I offered the following advice:

Awful I've done 27 once. You have to tell snr muddlement that class size is directly linked to results. You know the reasons why but in a short letter, I'd use the word 'differentiation' and point out the need for 1:1 conversations every 2 weeks, along side all the things you've listed. 20 kids should be the norm (of my 25 yrs, i I spent 7 yrs in private education and class sizes weren't more than 10 students!!). If your school won't back down (even 4 less would make a huge difference), you'll need to tell the students at the start of the year that they've got to take responsibility. But I'd fight this one. Get HOY on board, and write to who ever made the decision ALWAYS stating this will drastically hit class sizes and when the letter I ignored go to the next highest, until you've told the Head. Then offer solutions. 1. Non contact time in return for doing an after school twilight for an hour each week, where you speak 1:1 to 5 students at a time. 2. The school's promise that this class will not split into 2 classes in year 11. If they Head can't give you this, ask for a meeting with HM to outline concerns emphasising direct impact upon results and students and your own mental health. If HM won't agree to compromise then advise you will of course go with it but you will need to send a letter to governors to advise. And you can quote all the respondents here. I doubt you're the 1st to get this but I've never had more than 27 and RESULTS WILL SUFFER! You are a practical subject and GCSE classes should not exceed 20. Good luck.

This. All of this. 🙌

So here's an open question to all Art educators out there. There's been debate about Ai Wei Wei's latest lego pieces. I love Wei Wei and in spite of a glut of lego work out there, I like both the visceral beauty of the colours he has achieved [albeit inspired by Monet] and the ideas about 'value' [the ridiculous pricing of lego seeking an exclusivity that prevents it from being a toy for any but the most affluent]. In the classroom, I've found Wei Wei makes a great 'in' for the more timid 6th form artists that are sometimes scared to make that 1st work.
But I'm seeking diversity in my curriculum and that means I want to work with a wider folio of 'found object' artists - Duchamp was/is an important artist: I like his work but sadly there's a misogyny within it making it unhelpful for 21st century teaching. Sarah Lucas is a great practitioner but her sexual themes make her an inappropriate starting point for a male teacher to use in the classroom. So can you please suggest other found object artists that might be more appropriate for teaching?

Helping students to gain confidence and achieve outstanding results in Art and Design.

James Robinson | Find Tutors James Robinson, private tutor from Coventry, Foleshill, Hawkesbury (Warwickshire), Longford (), Walsgrave on Sowe, Wyken, Ansty (Warwickshire), Ash Green, Barnacle, Coundon () who teaches

Rights of the Child

in Art and Design education



I'm sure this list isn't definitive, but while I’m no online troll I AM heartily FED UP with reading appallingly reductive online posts carving out a corner of the universe for art that excludes the majority of children. Equally, VERY sadly, I have seen some appalling practice in schools making children feel bullied or inadequate or makes their voices and intelligences invisible.
Of course, it is hard work to build a safe and calm classroom where every child’s artistic voice is enabled, but ironically, the more that children are allowed ownership of their own journey, the easier creating that learning space becomes.
I’ve been a teacher for 25 years and worked with brilliant colleagues who value/d children, their learning and their voices and I know would agree with this list.

To most art teachers and parents, this list will seen obvious but their are many still out there [politicians, school leadership teams and indeed bad teachers] that will want to argue with these rights. Sorry, we all deserve opinions, but to ignore these rights is wrong and cruel and damages children and all parts of their development.


[in no particular order]

1. A child is allowed to LOVE learning about Art and Design, and it is their teacher’s responsibility to create a learning environment that enables that to happen.

2. A child should be allowed to experiment and explore and get it wrong. Getting it wrong is a vital part of an artist’s journey. They should be praised and indeed assessed for the depth of their exploration and bravery in experimentation over and above the quality of their outcome.

3. A child deserves to see [and therefore be shown] as wide a range of stimuli as possible. They have a right to be taught that art has and is made by people ALL OVER the world, that it wasn’t just dead white men that made great art, that social and political oppression and traditions made invisible much of the great work made by women over 1000s of years. They have a right to learn how Euro-centricity and colonialism past and present have either deliberately or by ignorance edited non white voices from art-history, books, the internet and museum/gallery spaces. Equally, they also deserve to be shown the beautiful oil paintings made by European artists of the 16th, 17th, 18th and 19th centuries. They have a right to enjoy the beautiful mark-making, inspiring compositions and skilful techniques of the past, but then at the same time they have a right to learn that great paintings are being created TODAY in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Bolivia and in the Philippines. They have a right to know that there were some brilliant women that were able to access the male dominated studios of the past, but also that there were millions of women that made beautiful textile work as part of their daily process whose work has been destroyed by time.

4. Children deserve to apply their own non-discriminatory beliefs to what art they look at and respond to. They have the right to choose not to look at work that they might feel is inappropriate, and they have a right to develop work without responding to work that might cause offence. Specifically, if a young person doesn’t want to work from the naked form or look at depictions of the naked form then that's OK. It’s not hard to for the teacher to find and show sculptures of the human figure that might cause less offense and drawing from the clothed figure is as nourishing and powerful as drawing from the n**e. Specifically children have a right to work in a space where they are not confronted by subjective or denigrating images unless it is to identify, discuss and respond to inappropriate imagery.

5. Children have the right to feel safe in their art classroom at all times, knowing that the leader of that learning space [usually a teacher or learning assistant] will ensure they know how to use equipment and materials safely, and that their work will be looked after carefully [if they put their name on it! (or if they don’t have the ability to do this themselves, someone will put their name on it on their behalf)]. They have a right to create work knowing that it won’t be ridiculed or unfairly criticised. The teacher/assistant’s language will always start with a 'well done' for what they have done before new targets are offered to help the student create/develop their work/ideas/skills further.

6. Anyone on the planet is entitled to identify themselves as an artist. There IS NO [or shouldn’t be] hierarchy. Artists aren’t just people who’ve been to art college or people that can use a pencil or a brush with a certain level of skill or people that work in the way that the society or teacher or parent thinks they should work. The student has a right to create work in the work that they want without their process being relegated to being ‘not art’. If Picasso could put a bicycle seat on the wall and be named [rightly or wrongly] as one of the greatest artists of the 20th century, then any child has a right to do this [or their own equivalent] and identify as an artist making an artwork so long as it doesn’t insult or hurt any other living creature.

7. A child deserves access to pencils and paper, nice paint-brushes and paints. Therefore, the child has a right to work in a space where they and their peers are taught how to look after art equipment and materials, and governments have a responsibility to ensure all schools are sufficiently funded to ensure children have access to these materials.

8. Every child has the right to respond to and create their work inspired by any source without being criticised or diminished for doing so, so long as the work they create is not insulting or hurtful or dangerous to themselves or others. They have the right NOT to be accused of cultural appropriation because they make a copy of a sculpture made by an artist elsewhere on the planet [so long as they credit their source] – this is how an artist loves and learns.

9. The child has a right to learn and it is the teacher’s responsibility to ensure they develop skills and understandings regardless of their abilities. They have a right to individual feedback from their teacher enabling them to refine their skills.

10. Every child has a right to excel as an artist and at public examination. They have a right to be shown how to succeed in every sense, but also to know where they find a skill hard to acquire or realise, that there is still value in what they have done. Achieving a lower grade doesn't make them a lesser artist, unless they have been actively lazy or deliberately careless in their journeys.

11. Every child deserves to be shown how they can progress their practice beyond the classroom both as a young person and by access to further education and pursuit of Art and Design either as a career or simply an activity that they pursue in parallel with the necessities of adult life.


I’m sure this list is not definitive and I would welcome others' additions/thoughts.

Advent calendar, day 2. Another blast from the deep past - part of my storyboard made in 1989 for a college production, a mystery play retelling the Bible using found objects and furniture.

Tired of Warhol?
You know what ? We ALL are. I mean, don't get me wrong - the man was a genius and I've always been so excited by his work but in GCSE and A level Art terms, he's a DEAD END !
What skills are you going to show by drawing on a photo or screen printing the image in whacky colours. What are you saying? What are you doing? Screen printing is a beautiful art form but it won't make marks for you and worst of all, EXAMINERS are SO bored of seeing the same work the same pastiche Warhol studies over and over again. Try something new. Find an artist with a fresher and less overworked idea - your work will feel much fresher and the examiner will be more excited. Know what? That's a win-win.

If it's pop art you're after, you could do a lot worse studying the work of Pauline Boty [who was the subject of my post BELOW] or why not go really global and study the work of amazing contemporary artist, Ketna Patel, who takes motifs and themes from Singapore and India to create beautiful CONTEMPORARY pop art images that your examiner won't find so obvious - check out her stuff at ketnapatel.com and ENJOY