Art, Textiles and Photography

From the start of Year 7 girls experiment with a wide range of materials through a carousel of drawing and painting, textiles, sculpture and printmaking, Every pupil studies Art until the end of the Year 9.

We offer both Fine Art and Textiles at GCSE and provide three different choices of Art & Design at A level: Fine Art, Textiles, Photography.

Within our Fine Art GCSE and A Level syllabi the girls develop skills, knowledge and understanding using techniques and processes specific to their chosen areas of study. They have the opportunity to work in a number of different areas of Fine Art including drawing, installation, lens-/light-based media, mixed-media, land art, printing, painting and sculpture. There are lots of opportunities to experiment in their chosen subject and to develop the full range of techniques and skills in their field. Girls also study critical and contextual sources, such as the work of historical and contemporary fine artists and the different purposes, intentions and functions of fine art within their area of work. Every girl works on a portfolio of coursework material as well as the examination pro.

Art pupils at St George’s enjoy the use of three spacious and well resourced art rooms, a sculpture and painting room complete with kiln, a photography department with dark room and digital imaging and a textiles department with plenty of sewing machines. Art pupils can access the art rooms during their free periods as well as after school and receive expert technical advice from our art technician.

Life drawing and supervised weekly prep sessions are offered to our GCSE and A Level pupils. This support is given by experienced teachers as well as the Artist in Residence, providing expertise and inspiration to help them with their ongoing projects.

We benefit hugely from our Artists in Residence, who bring their specific expertise and passion for the subject into the classroom, greatly enhancing the girls’ education. During the course of their residency each artist will produce a portfolio of artwork to inspire the pupils, working towards an end of year exhibition. Pupils are given the opportunity to work with the Artist in Residence during lunchtime or at our after school co-curricular art clubs.

Every girl has the opportunity to visit contemporary exhibitions during the year. We also arrange for visiting artists to run workshops.

Our connection with the local community remains a priority and a highlight; our artwork regularly decorates Ascot train station and we continue to enjoy working with other local schools on a number of different local projects such as producing poppy paintings in commemoration of the Armistice. As well as our annual Christmas Card Design Competition, the girls often enter their art into the Royal Ascot Art Competition, the Windsor Festival and the Saatchi Gallery, and have frequently won awards in the different categories. We also recently took part in the Lions of Windsor sculpture trail, where some of the girls enjoyed the opportunity to decorate a large fibreglass lion cub.

Many of our artists continue their Art education on an Art Foundation course or degree. We have enjoyed frequent success at entry to London’s leading art colleges such as Central St Martins as well as acceptance on degree courses such as Architecture, Fashion, Marketing, Photography and Fashion and Business among many others. Alumnae have gone on to successful careers, including becoming the Fashion Editor for American Vogue, a fabric developer at Roland Mouret and PR manager at Louboutin.