Visual Art at junior cycle aims to provide the student with a set of personal attitudes and qualities as well as skills and processes and a sense of the aesthetic.
Through practical engagement in the areas of art, craft and design students will develop self confidence, inquisitiveness, imagination, and creativity. They will also develop authentic, real world problem-solving capacities and the capacity to work over time, as an individual and in groups, on the design and execution of artistic and aesthetic tasks.
Within the safe space of the art class, students will experience the authentic visual art processes of imagining, investigating, experimenting, making, displaying and evaluating. They will sometimes fail, and learn that failure can often be a hugely positive learning experience. Students will develop the knowledge, skills and understanding necessary to produce and to engage with authentic and original art, craft and design work. In so doing, they will begin to develop the visual literacy, critical skills and language necessary to engage with contemporary culture. This will further contribute to the students’ understanding of the rich and diverse roles of art, craft and design in historical and contemporary societies and cultures.