The Arts Level 4 (Years 5 and 6)
Learning in the Arts draws on the arts disciplines of Dance, Drama, Media, Music, and Visual Arts (Art: two-dimensional and three-dimensional) individually and in combination. Learning and teaching programs allow students to develop skills, knowledge and understanding relevant to specific arts disciplines with increasing competence. At this level students begin to explore the interdisciplinary nature of arts disciplines; for example, by making installations that incorporate a number of Visual Arts forms, by creating performances that include combinations of Music, Dance and Drama, and/or by combining visual and performance arts forms. In programs associated with Level 4, students should have experience in at least two arts disciplines.
Learning focus
As students work towards the achievement of Level 4 standards in the Arts, they investigate a range of traditional and contemporary arts forms, styles, media, materials, equipment and technologies in the arts disciplines of Dance, Drama, Media, Music and Visual Arts – Art (two-dimensional and three-dimensional) individually and in combination. They learn about ways to design, improvise, represent, interpret, make and present arts works that communicate feelings and their interests and understanding of themselves, their relationships and other people. For example:
- in Dance, students mirror the movements of a partner and then perform the same movements expressing contrasting emotions
- in Drama, students role-play situations and events, sustaining role/character throughout their group or solo performance.
They experiment with imaginative and innovative ways of generating ideas and manipulating arts elements, principles and/or conventions to explore the potential of ideas, gaining inspiration from a broad range of sources, including arts works from different cultures, styles and historical contexts. For example:
- in Art, students view and discuss examples of portraits by artists from different cultural contexts, then using mixed media, they create a work using techniques from a culture that is not their own
- in Music, students listen to and discuss the mood created in selected advertisement jingles or sound tracks for a cartoon or a theme for a movie character, then using a variety of sound sources and a range of sounds they create two arrangements of group-devised music to convey two different moods.
Students research, improvise, practise and rehearse skills, techniques and processes, using a range of media, materials, equipment and technologies. With some guidance, they maintain a record of their planning and development (for example, in a visual diary or multimedia journal) noting when they are achieving their aim. They also record the refining of specific aspects of the work when ideas or attempts are not realising their intended purpose. Students learn to evaluate their own and other people’s arts works showing some understanding of selected arts forms and their particular techniques and processes as well as an emerging understanding of the qualities of arts elements, principles and/or conventions. They independently and collaboratively explore and experiment with different ways of presenting arts works and consider appropriateness of presentation for intended audience. Through exploring and responding, students begin to develop a vocabulary of appropriate arts language they can use to describe and discuss the content and structural qualities of their own and other people’s arts works. They begin to research, and with guidance, analyse arts works to interpret and compare key features, symbols and cultural characteristics of arts works in a range of contemporary and traditional forms from different historic, social and cultural contexts. For example:
- in Media, students research media texts focusing on the use of a range of media technologies in the production and presentation of news in different historical contexts, and then create a real or imagined news item for their school community by working collaboratively from pre-production to post-production and presentation of the news item.
They begin to reflect on their responses to other people’s works and consider other’s perspectives when discussing arts works.
Further examples of arts discipline-specific learning approaches for Level 4 will be published soon.
Standards
Creating and making
At Level 4, students independently and collaboratively experiment with and apply a range of skills, techniques and processes using a range of media, materials, equipment and technologies to plan, develop, refine, make and present arts works. They investigate a range of sources to generate ideas and manipulate arts elements, principles and/or conventions in a range of arts disciplines and forms as they explore the potential of ideas. In their arts works, they communicate ideas and understandings about themselves and others, incorporating influences from their own and other cultures and times. They evaluate the effectiveness of their arts works and make changes to realise intended aims. They consider purpose and suitability when they plan and prepare arts works for presentation to a variety of audiences.
Exploring and responding
At Level 4, students discuss traditional and contemporary arts works using appropriate arts language to describe the content, structure and expressive qualities of their own and other people’s works from a range of arts disciplines and forms. They interpret and compare key features of arts works made in a range of times, places and cultures. They identify and describe influences on their own works and discuss the purposes for which arts works are created in different historical and cultural contexts.
Downloads
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The Arts booklet (
PDF - 249KB) - The Arts standards table (Doc - 41KB)
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Victorian Essential Learning Standards Level 4 ( PDF - 751KB)
