Teaching A-Level Art & Design for the First Time

ABOUT THIS COURSE

This course refreshed and updated for 2025 is focussed on how to deliver all areas of the A-Level Art & Design course to maximum success. It will focus on exploring the characteristics of work produced by students working at all levels and explore a range of teaching materials that will support and underpin effective teaching of this challenging linear specification. The sessions are designed to improve delegates’ understanding of the AQA specification and ensure that candidates have the best opportunity to maximise their potential grades. Delegates will receive new teaching approaches as well as key guidance in how to develop exceptional examination and NEA techniques in AQA A-Level Art to maximise students’ success when delivering the course for the first time. Using feedback from the most recent examinations, the course will outline what is expected of students and explore ways to build your teaching practice around this.

---

BENEFITS OF ATTENDING

• Obtain excellent understanding of the complexities of the AQA A-Level Art & Design specification
• Examine how to maximise success in the personal investigation coursework unit
• Gain insight into the content, the exam structure and how the exam component is marked
• Understanding of how to differentiate using scaffold and stretch strategies for essay writing
• Develop your teaching in specific discipline areas to raise standard of achievement
• Examples of A-level coursework and exam component sets: how to prepare students to get the most possible marks
• Take away a set of resources

---

PROGRAMME

Identifying Methods that will Enhance Performance from the Start 10.00am

• What’s involved in the course?
• Exploring the key challenge spots, and ways to structure your teaching to give time to the most demanding sections
• Review characteristics of exemplar work in AQA GCSE Art & Design
• Recognising which areas will be the most challenging and preparing for these l What are the standards in each component?
• Component 1: Portfolio – exploring in more depth
• Component 2: Externally Set Assignment – exploring in more depth

---

 

Break

11.55am

---

Component One: The Key Challenges of  the Portfolio 11.15am

• Choosing the project that will unlock student potential – building on prior knowledge
• Practical strategies to experimentation with a purpose
• How do I know when a student has reached the top of the assessment bands?
• Teaching lower and higher ability students to ensure success

---

Reinvigorated Approaches to Recording 12.15pm

• Demonstrating intellectual rigour through the essay: Structure and samples
• Approaches to developing students’ skills in drawing as process, practice and purpose
• Organising and presenting work effectively
• Successful approaches to constructing a portfolio with drawing in its various forms at its basis
• How to support students in realising their intentions in final outcomes

---

Lunch

1.00pm

---

Component Two: Successfully Teaching the Externally Set Assignment 2.00pm

• Useful advice on how to approach the teaching of the Externally Set Assignment – effective strategies, methods and techniques
• Scenarios and responses in the Externally Set Assignment
• Responding to starting points effectively – examples
• Where and why students can struggle with this component
• What are the key points for examination success in component 2?

---

  Planning your Course and Assessments over 2 Years 2.45pm

• Effectively structuring your course to maximise end outcomes
• How to confidently assess your students, give effective feedback, and ensure they remain on track throughout the two-year course – how to structure for this
• Strategies to prepare your students for the examination
• How can you track and use intervention models effectively?
• How can I challenge and stretch and challenge more able students to reach the highest grades?

---

Depart

3.30pm

---