Art & Design · Key Stage 3 · £4.99

Year 9
Art & Design
Scheme of Work

Six half-termly units across one academic year, each building something the next one assumes. It ends with an independent personal response that rehearses how a 14–16 course actually works.

£4.99The Year 9 scheme: 6 half-termly units, 38 pages

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The whole key stage: KS3 Art & Design scheme of work

Everything else this site has for Art & Design: Art & Design teaching resources

1aStructures & Still Life
1bPortraiture & Identity
2aSurrealism & the Subconscious
2bPop Art & Printmaking
3a3D & Sculpture: Natural Forms
3bGCSE / IGCSE Taster — Personal Response

Eight sections per unit, in the same order every time. Lessons are one row each rather than a page each — enough to teach from, not so much that it cannot be maintained across a whole department.

Experimentation is the one principle that applies identically to every unit, so it is stated once at the front: it is not extra work, it is the process, and no student moves to a final piece without a visible trail of tried, reviewed and changed decisions.

Every duration, material, artist and assessment word is a strong default rather than a fixed rule. Year 9 means ages 13–14, or S2–S3 in Scotland.

Written to: The statutory programme of study for key stage 3 art and design (DfE, 2013)
Intended for: heads of art, subject leaders and every teacher who has to deliver it
Extent: 38 pages · 8 sections

The sequence

What this scheme of work covers, unit by unit

The 6 units of the Year 9 Art & Design Scheme of Work, in teaching order, with the term each one runs in and the question it is built to answer, what students make, the artists they meet and the vocabulary they learn.

1a
Structures & Still Life
Autumn 1 · approx. 7 weeks · September – October
How can I use tone and structure to make something ordinary look extraordinary?
End outcome
A final A3 tonal still life composition of a personal object arrangement, developed through sketchbook experimentation and one artist-response study.
Core skills
Accurate proportion via sighting/measuring. · Tonal range: light, mid-tone, dark, reflected light. · Composition: cropping, viewpoint, negative space.
Key artists
Giorgio Morandi, Paul Cézanne, Wayne Thiebaud
Key vocabulary
tone, form, composition, viewpoint, proportion, negative space, light source
1b
Portraiture & Identity
Autumn 2 · approx. 7 weeks · November – December
How can I show who someone is, not just what they look like?
End outcome
A final expressive mixed-media self-portrait, developed through grid, mirror-study and symbolic-collage experimentation.
Core skills
Facial proportion via guideline grid. · Mixed-media experimentation. · Structured evaluative writing.
Key artists
Chuck Close, Frida Kahlo, Kehinde Wiley
Key vocabulary
symbolism, expression, proportion (facial), mixed media, identity, autobiography
2a
Surrealism & the Subconscious
Spring 1 · approx. 6 weeks · January – February
Where do ideas come from, and how can I generate images I couldn’t have planned?
End outcome
A final surreal composition in paint or mixed media, developed through automatic drawing, exquisite corpse and scale-distortion experimentation.
Core skills
Automatic drawing. · Collaborative and independent idea generation. · Combining unrelated imagery into a coherent composition.
Key artists
Salvador Dalí, René Magritte, Leonora Carrington
Key vocabulary
juxtaposition, scale, distortion, subconscious, surrealism, automatism
2b
Pop Art & Printmaking
Spring 2 · approx. 6 weeks · February – April
How can repetition and process change the meaning of an everyday object?
End outcome
A final printed edition (3–4 prints) of a personal-object design, developed through cutting practice and colour/registration trials.
Core skills
Relief-block cutting. · Print registration and repeat printing. · Colour layering and control.
Key artists
Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Corita Kent
Key vocabulary
edition, relief, registration, repetition, consumerism, Ben-Day dots
3a
3D & Sculpture: Natural Forms
Summer 1 · approx. 6 weeks · April – May
How does material choice change what a form can say?
End outcome
A final 3D piece in clay, plaster or mixed natural materials, developed through a wire maquette and photographic documentation of an outdoor response.
Core skills
Maquette-making. · 3D construction using a range of materials. · Considered material and scale decision-making.
Key artists
Andy Goldsworthy, Henry Moore, Ai Weiwei
Key vocabulary
form, mass, armature, ephemeral, site-specific
3b
GCSE / IGCSE Taster — Personal Response
Summer 2 · approx. 6 weeks · June – July
If I designed my own art project, what would I make — and is this something I want to keep doing?
End outcome
A mini project folder (mind-map/mood-board, one artist-research page, one final personal-response piece) applying the whole year’s skills independently, used as an Options-evening exemplar.
Core skills
Independent starting-point generation (mind-map/mood-board). · Independent artist research. · Applying self-selected media/technique to a personal outcome.
Key artists
Student’s choice — revisit a favourite from the year, or research a new artist such as Jean-Michel Basquiat or Yayoi Kusama
Key vocabulary
assessment objectives, NEA, externally set task, starting point