Visual Art and Key Skills

In addition to their specific content and knowledge, the subjects and short courses of junior cycle provide students with opportunities to develop a range of key skills. This course offers opportunities to support all key skills but some are particularly significant. The examples below identify some of the elements that are related to learning activities in Visual Art. The 8 key skills are set out in detail in Key Skills of Junior Cycle

Key skill	Example of key skill element	Examples of associated student learning activities
Being creative	Exploring options and alternatives	Students experience and experiment with visual art processes such as observing, imagining, making and investigating through a wide range of media including digital methods.
Being literate	Expressing my ideas clearly and accurately	Students demonstrate through conversations, discussions, and presentations of and about their work or the work of others that they understand and can interpret the artistic processes involved.
Being numerate	Developing a personal disposition towards investigating, reasoning and problem-solving	Students develop their ideas and work using their knowledge, skills and personal experiences, e.g. measuring and estimating materials for three-dimensional work.
Communicating	Performing and presenting	Students present a range of explorations from their work that best describes and supports their ideas and finished work in a variety of ways, e.g. exhibition, installation, performance art, e-Portfolio, Visual Art sketchpad.
Managing information and thinking	Thinking creatively and critically	Through observational drawing, students learn to record and analyse what they see, either as an end in itself or for use in developing work.
Managing myself	Being able to reflect on my own learning	Students, through the development of their own work, reflect on their artistic choices and decisions both at the time of creation and at the end of the process itself.
Staying well	Being safe	Students, within the safe space of the art class, can explain, use and understand appropriate content, tools and materials in an ethical and responsible way.
Working with others	Contributing to making the world a better place	Working collaboratively within a cultural context and with members of their wider community, students use their artistic skills to improve the spaces they inhabit for all.