Contact Information
| Ms S Bohannon on bohannons@denbigh.net | Mrs L Lewis on lewisl2@denbigh.net |
| Mrs L Clegg on cleggl@denbigh.net | Mr M Stroud on stroudm@denbigh.net |
| Mr M Jackson on jacksonm@denbigh.net | Miss C O’Rourke on orourkec@denbigh.net |
| Miss E Tattam on tattame@denbigh.net | Mr D Wilkie on wilkied@denbigh.net |
| Mr M Stroud on stroudm@denbigh.net |
Faculty Information
The Creative Arts Faculty is a hive of energy and imagination, and our committed team of staff offer inclusive opportunities for all students to engage in creative pursuits both inside and outside of lessons.
We are fortunate to have exceptional facilities. We have three open-plan art rooms on the top floor complete with storage and a kiln. Downstairs we have a purpose-built ‘Meeting Hall’ which is split into two spaces, with a moveable partition. We use both spaces as drama classrooms, with a range of impressive audio-visual equipment and storage space. We have two music classrooms, one of which includes bi-fold doors leading to an outdoor performance space, ‘the amphitheatre’ where audiences can watch our break time concerts on the stone steps. We also have a dedicated Music Technology room with a suite of computers with digital audio workstations. We have an instrument storage space and three music practice rooms primarily used by peripatetic teachers during the School day.
We feel very strongly that our extra-curricular opportunities should be inclusive and are there for all members of our Denbigh community, regardless of whether they have opted to study Creative Arts subjects at examination level. We regularly refresh our offers and encourage students to set up their own clubs and rehearsals. A few examples of our regular clubs are Musical Theatre, Art, Band Development, Orchestra, and an A-Capella singing group.
The Faculty also presents larger productions. In the last few years, our students have performed ‘Matilda the Musical’ by special commission and license from the Royal Shakespeare Company, entered the Shakespeare Schools Festival performing ‘Julius Caesar’; performed a sell-out production of ‘We Will Rock You’ complete with live band; put on a production of ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’, and performed an intimate thrust version of the play, ‘DNA’ by Dennis Kelly.
The Creative Arts Faculty at Denbigh is a bustling environment where you will find students rehearsing, and working outside of classroom hours regularly and you will find staff committed to realising students’ potential in their creative endeavours.
The Creative Arts Faculty produces an annual Music Development Plan which can be accessed here:
Art
Art is all around you. From the moment you pick up your smartphone and see a wallpaper image on your screen of a decorative pattern, a character design, a painting by a famous artist, a photograph you have taken, you are bombarded with the formal elements of art. The wallpaper (or coloured paint) on the walls, the statue in the front room, the poster on the side of the bus. Prevalent throughout history, Art is seen in ways many people cannot imagine. Cultures use mud to create masks; artists paint a gigantic apple squeezed into a tiny room; an everyday soup can or bottle of coke can be called Art.
In Art lessons, we want all students to experience Art from around the world, both historic and contemporary. To see that picking up a pencil and drawing with it is Art, but that drawing can also be in colour, with a pen, with a spatula and glue and with a finger dipped in paint. We want all students to be encouraged by experimentation and not be afraid to have a go at something new and take risks. Students are always encouraged to be analytical about the work of others and critical (and complimentary) of their own. We know that Art will always be a part of our diverse society and our creative industries, and we believe it is something to be really excited about.
Schemes of Learning
Art
Useful Websites (Art)
- GCSE Specifications
- Student Art Guide: A student guide to art sketchbook ideas
- BBC Bitesize
Drama
Useful Websites (Drama)
Music
Music Tech
Useful Website
- Quizlet
- Focus on Sound
- BBC Bitesize
- Microsoft Teams: Scores and Sound files in the class channel files
- Sound on Sound
- Music Tech
- Music Radar
Faculty Assessment & Feedback Policy
Please find a copy of the Faculty Assessment and Feedback policy below. Teachers in the faculty subject areas will follow this policy when assessing students learning and providing feedback.
Key Words for Year 7 Art
| Key Term | Definition |
| Tone | How light or dark a colour is. This will add depth to a shape, turning it into a form. |
| Texture | Making a smooth surface look rough. Thinking about the quality of this and the amount of sharpness/ roughness to the image. It adds a realism to a piece and can be created using pencil and mixed media. This can be implied or actual. |
| Shading | Often done with pencils in this project showing tones that get darker. |
| 2B and 4B | Going beyond the HB. Using pencils that can give you a darker shade with 4B being the darker. These pencils add a greater depth. |
| Mark making | An important part of art where lines are adapted and changed. These can be thick, thin, straight, on their own or overlapping. Specific language is used to describe the different methods including cross hatching. |
| Shape | Two dimensional (flat) Circle |
| Form | Three dimensional (with depth) Sphere |
| Presentation | The way that work can be presented to an audience to share a greater depth of understanding. A creative use of media and materials to highlight the quality of work. |
| Annotation | The use of key words and phrases that add to the depth of the investigation into the project. Subject specific language is used to describe work. Opinion is also given. |
| Formal elements | The key skills that all students will be using and developing at Denbigh through a wide range of tasks. |
Key Words for Year 7 Art (Tone and Texture)
| Key Term | Definition |
| Tone | How light or dark a colour is. This will add depth to a shape, turning it into a form. |
| Texture | Making a smooth surface look rough. Thinking about the quality of this and the amount of sharpness/ roughness to the image. It adds a realism to a piece and can be created using pencil and mixed media. This can be implied or actual. |
| Shading | Often done with pencils in this project showing tones that get darker. |
| 2B and 4B | Going beyond the HB. Using pencils that can give you a darker shade with 4B being the darker. These pencils add a greater depth. |
| Mark making | An important part of art where lines are adapted and changed. These can be thick, thin, straight, on their own or overlapping. Specific language is used to describe the different methods including cross hatching. |
| Shape | Two dimensional (flat) Circle. |
| Form | Three dimensional (with depth) Sphere. |
| Presentation | The way that work can be presented to an audience to share a greater depth of understanding. A creative use of media and materials to highlight the quality of work. |
| Annotation | The use of key words and phrases that add to the depth of the investigation into the project. Subject specific language is used to describe work. Opinion is also given. |
| Formal elements | The key skills that all students will be using and developing at Denbigh through a wide range of tasks. |
Key Words for Year 8 Art
| Key Term | Definition |
| Cultural identity | Recognition of how cultures (both modern and historical) are represented in the world through their look, geographical landscapes, clothing, influence on others, pattern, architecture, colour and art. |
| Media | Including pencil, pen, oil pastels – students gain a greater understanding of different (dry) media. |
| Materials | Including paper, newspaper, coloured textured paper – this is used to present work in a creative and appropriate manner. |
| Presentation | The way that work can be presented to an audience to share a greater depth of understanding. A creative use of media and materials to highlight the quality of work. |
| Annotation | The use of key words and phrases that add to the depth of the investigation into the project. Subject specific language is used to describe work. Opinion is also given. |
| Artist link | Looking at the work of an artist to think about how they have been influenced by different aspects of the culture. This link is clear in the work presented and annotations used. |
| Formal elements progression | The idea that the skills taught in year 7 are developed and taken further |
| Composition | The placement/ arrangement/ layout of different elements in a piece of art. |
Drama
Drama lessons at Denbigh encourage creativity, imagination and teach Drama as a discreet body of knowledge, in addition to acknowledging its wide range of transferable skills. The three key areas of learning in Drama are performing script, devising drama, and evaluating and analysing others’ performances. All three areas are taught throughout our curriculum in Year 7 all the way through to Year 13 in A Level study.
Students learn about effective communication for an audience in terms of physical and vocal acting skills. The students will then build upon this foundation and learn about different styles of theatre from physical theatre, melodrama, epic theatre, naturalism and develop performance skills to suit these styles. Students will perform scripts in particular styles and then devise their own drama, inspired by a range of stimuli, and use style and theatre practitioners to develop their work. Students will evaluate one another’s work verbally and then develop to writing extended analytical reviews of professional live theatre.
Our facilities support the teaching of Theatre Design and students are introduced to this from Year 7 in addition to developing their performance skills. Drama offers a creative environment for experimentation and an opportunity to explore the lives of a range of different characters, places, and time periods.
Keywords for Year 7 Drama
| Word | Definition |
| Gesture | A character’s movements with hands and arms. E.g. Folded arms, clasped hands, hands clasped behind back. |
| Posture | The position of a character’s back. |
| Facial Expression | The emotion / feeling created on a character’s face. |
| Gait | The specific way a character is walking. |
| Body language | Looking at a character’s whole body and the emotion, mood or feeling they are communicating with their movement, posture, gesture. |
| Tone | The emotion in a character’s voice. |
| Pitch | The high or low sounds in a character’s voice. |
| Pace | The speed (slow or fast) of a character’s voice, or movement. |
| Pause | Moments in dialogue (speech) when a character temporarily stops speaking. |
| Volume | How loud or soft the voice is. |
| Breathing | How an actor controls their voice by inhaling and exhaling. |
| Diaphragm | The muscle used to control the power in the voice. |
| Diction | How an actor pronounces words to be heard clearly by the audience. |
Keywords for Year 8 Drama
| Word | Definition |
| Tension | Tension is the creation of anticipation, suspense, and the unknown for an audience. |
| Eye Contact | Deliberate choices by actors to hold, or not engage in, eye contact. |
| Proxemics | The distance, close or far, between characters to communicate their relationship. |
| Levels | Creating different heights on stage – floor, kneeling, chair, standing, on a rostra – to communicate different levels of status or power. |
| Status | The relationship between characters usually created in terms of power and control. Eg – a policer officer and an offender; a boss and an employee. |
| Pause | A moment of stillness in movement and /or dialogue to create silence to create tension. |
| Silence | A much longer moment of stillness in movement and / or dialogue to create a lengthy silence to create and build tension. |
| OTHER KEY WORDS | |
| Gesture | A character’s movements with hands and arms. |
| Posture | The position of a character’s back. |
| Facial Expression | The emotion / feeling created on a character’s face. |
| Gait | The specific way a character is walking. |
| Body language | Looking at a character’s whole body and the emotion, mood or feeling they are communicating with their movement, posture, gesture. |
| Tone | The emotion in a character’s voice. |
| Pitch | The high or low sounds in a character’s voice. |
| Pace | The speed (slow or fast) of a character’s voice, or movement. |
Music
Music is a universal language that embodies one of the highest forms of creativity. The high quality music education at Denbigh engages and inspires pupils to develop a love of music and their talent as musicians, and so increase their self-confidence, creativity and sense of achievement. As students progress, they develop a critical engagement with music, allowing them to compose, and to listen with discrimination to the best in the musical world.
At Denbigh we have curated exciting and engaging schemes of work for all year groups that cover a broad range of experiences, musical backgrounds and cultures, and allows students to build their performance, composition, and appraisal skills, as well as their personal discipline and independence, creativity, collaborative group working skills, respect for others, and self-esteem through personal accomplishment.
Key Words for Year 7 Music
| Key Term | Definition |
| HOOK | A ‘musical hook’ is usually the ‘catchy bit’ of the song that you will remember. It is often short and used and repeated in different places throughout the piece. HOOKS can either a: MELODIC HOOK – a HOOK based on the instruments and the singers; a RHYTHMIC HOOK – a HOOK based on the patterns in the drums and bass parts or a VERBAL/LYRICAL HOOK – a HOOK based on the rhyming and/or repeated words of the chorus. |
| RIFF | A repeated musical pattern often used in the introduction and instrumental breaks in a song or piece of music. RIFFS can be rhythmic, melodic or lyrical, short and repeated. |
| OSTINATO | A repeated musical pattern. The same meaning as the word RIFF, but used when describing repeated musical patterns in “classical” and some “World” music. |
| BASS LINE | The lowest pitched part of the music often played on bass instruments such as the bass guitar or double bass. RIFFS are often used in BASS LINES. |
| MELODY | The main “tune” of a song or piece of music, played higher in pitch that the BASS LINE and it may also contain RIFFS or HOOKS. In “Classical Music”, the melody line is often performed “with” an OSTINATO pattern below. |
| REPEAT SYMBOL | A musical symbol used in staff notation consisting of two vertical dots followed by double bar lines showing the performer should go back to either the start of the piece or to the corresponding sign facing the other way and repeat that section of music. |
| TREBLE CLEF | A musical symbol showing that notes are to be performed at a higher pitch. |
| BASS CLEF | A musical symbol showing that notes are to be performed at a lower pitch. The BASS LINE part is often written using the BASS CLEF. |
| PITCH | The highness or lowness of a sound or musical note. |
| MELODY/THEME | The main “tune” of a song or piece of music. The melody or theme often varies in pitch and “good melodies” have an organised and recognisable shape. |
| HARMONY | Playing two or more notes at the same time. The “harmony part” in music is always different to the melody part. |
| DRONE | A repeated note or notes of long duration played throughout the music. When two notes are used, they are often five notes apart (a fifth). |
| FORM/STRUCTURE | How a piece of music is organised into different sections or parts. PHRASE – A short section of music, like a “musical sentence”. |
| QUESTION AND ANSWER PHRASES | Two short sections within a larger/longer piece of music. The first QUESTION PHRASE is followed by the ANSWER PHRASE which in some way copies or answers the first – like a “musical conversation”. |
| BINARY FORM (AB) | Describes music in two separate sections. The first section is labelled “A” and the second section labelled “B” – either or both sections may be repeated. The “B” section contrasts musically in some way to the first “A” section. |
| TERNARY FORM (ABA) | Describes music in three sections. The first section can be labelled “A” and the second section “B”. The “B” section contrasts in some way to the first “A” section which is then REPEATED after the “B” section again making a “musical sandwich”. |
| RONDO FORM (ABACADA….) | Describes music where a main THEME or MELODY “A” keeps returning between different contrasting sections “B”, “C”, “D”. etc called EPISODES. |
Key Words for Year 8 Music
| Key Term | Definition |
| HOOK | A ‘musical hook’ is usually the ‘catchy bit’ of the song that you will remember. It is often short and used and repeated in different places throughout the piece. HOOKS can either a: MELODIC HOOK – a HOOK based on the instruments and the singers; a RHYTHMIC HOOK – a HOOK based on the patterns in the drums and bass parts or a VERBAL/LYRICAL HOOK – a HOOK based on the rhyming and/or repeated words of the chorus. |
| RIFF | A repeated musical pattern often used in the introduction and instrumental breaks in a song or piece of music. RIFFS can be rhythmic, melodic or lyrical, short and repeated. |
| OSTINATO | A repeated musical pattern. The same meaning as the word RIFF, but used when describing repeated musical patterns in “classical” and some “World” music. |
| BASS LINE | The lowest pitched part of the music often played on bass instruments such as the bass guitar or double bass. RIFFS are often used in BASS LINES. |
| MELODY | The main “tune” of a song or piece of music, played higher in pitch that the BASS LINE and it may also contain RIFFS or HOOKS. In “Classical Music”, the melody line is often performed “with” an OSTINATO pattern below. |
| REPEAT SYMBOL | A musical symbol used in staff notation consisting of two vertical dots followed by double bar lines showing the performer should go back to either the start of the piece or to the corresponding sign facing the other way and repeat that section of music. |
| TREBLE CLEF | A musical symbol showing that notes are to be performed at a higher pitch. |
| BASS CLEF | A musical symbol showing that notes are to be performed at a lower pitch. The BASS LINE part is often written using the BASS CLEF. |
| PITCH | The highness or lowness of a sound or musical note. |
| MELODY/THEME | The main “tune” of a song or piece of music. The melody or theme often varies in pitch and “good melodies” have an organised and recognisable shape. |
| HARMONY | Playing two or more notes at the same time. The “harmony part” in music is always different to the melody part. |
| DRONE | A repeated note or notes of long duration played throughout the music. When two notes are used, they are often five notes apart (a fifth). |
| FORM/STRUCTURE | How a piece of music is organised into different sections or parts. PHRASE – A short section of music, like a “musical sentence”. |
| QUESTION AND ANSWER PHRASES | Two short sections within a larger/longer piece of music. The first QUESTION PHRASE is followed by the ANSWER PHRASE which in some way copies or answers the first – like a “musical conversation”. |
| BINARY FORM (AB) | Describes music in two separate sections. The first section is labelled “A” and the second section labelled “B” – either or both sections may be repeated. The “B” section contrasts musically in some way to the first “A” section. |
| TERNARY FORM (ABA) | Describes music in three sections. The first section can be labelled “A” and the second section “B”. The “B” section contrasts in some way to the first “A” section which is then REPEATED after the “B” section again making a “musical sandwich”. |
| RONDO FORM (ABACADA….) | Describes music where a main THEME or MELODY “A” keeps returning between different contrasting sections “B”, “C”, “D”. etc called EPISODES. |
Music Technology
Music Technology is the study of creating music using technology. Whilst studying this subject, students will learn about using music production software and equipment, musical styles, the history and development of technology and the principles and practices of Music Technology. Modern music and media rely on the effective use of Music Technology which makes the subject both exciting and rewarding to study.
During Years 7 and 8, the music curriculum will explore some of the basic elements of technology with occasional opportunities to work with computers and music. When students make their GCSE option choices, they can choose the VCert Music Technology course as one of their options. This course explores the foundation skills of Music Technology through the completion of portfolios of work and examinations. If students choose to continue into our Sixth Form, we offer the Edexcel Music Technology A Level course. The A level covers a broad range of knowledge and skills and is the perfect stepping stone for students who wish to continue studying Music Technology into further education.
