The Arts learning area comprises five subjects: Dance, Drama, Media Arts, Music and Visual Arts. Together they provide opportunities for students to learn how to create, design, represent, communicate and share their imagined and conceptual ideas, emotions, observations and experiences, as they discover and interpret the world.
The Arts entertain, inform, challenge, and encourage responses, and enrich our knowledge of self, communities, world cultures and histories. The Arts contribute to the development of confident and creative individuals, nurturing and challenging active and informed citizens. Learning in the Arts is based on cognitive, affective and sensory/kinaesthetic response to arts practices as students’ revisit increasingly complex content, skills and processes with developing confidence and sophistication through the years of schooling.
Aesthetic understanding helps students to appreciate and critically respond to various arts experiences with enjoyment. Through their arts experiences, students come to understand broader questions about the values and attitudes held by individuals and communities.
Here at Ashdale Secondary College, The Arts aims to educate each student not only in the Arts but also themselves as individuals and groups. Within the Arts learning area, we offer the students the opportunity to study either one or a combination of Dance, Drama, Media, Music and Visual Arts. Through these areas, the students can unleash their creative flair using various art skills and processes to develop several performances and works. The students will have the opportunity to participate in local and state-wide activities in dance, drama, music and visual arts.
Arts within Years 7-10 | For Years 7 – 10 Ashdale Secondary College offers generic Arts programs that cover the following outcomes; Arts Making and Arts Responding. Contexts include; Ceramics, Dance, Drama, Music, Media Arts and Visual Arts.
Arts within Years 11 & 12 | In Years 11 and 12 we offer the General and ATAR courses in Dance, Drama and Visual Arts. At the end of Year 12, the students sit both practical and theory examinations.
We also offer a VET Pathway, where students gain a Certificate II or III in Dance, Theatre, Music or Visual Arts.
Vocational Education and Training (VET) Courses
In The Arts for Years 10 – 12 students, Ashdale Secondary College offers the following Certificates:
- CUA20215 Certificate II in Creative Industries – Live Production (RTO 2401 – Skills Strategies International) 2-year course (Years 10 & 11 OR Years 11 & 12)
- CUA20113 Certificate II in Dance (RTO 52499 – VETiS Consulting) 1-year course
- CUV20111 Certificate II in Visual Arts (RTO 52499 – VETiS Consulting) 1-year course
- CUA20615 Certificate II in Music Industry (RTO – 41549 Cosamp) 1-year course in Year 11
- CUS30109 Certificate II in Music (RTO 41549 – Cosamp) 2-year course (Years 11 & 12)
We have many extracurricular activities available for students from Years 7-12. For information, see Mr Pirlo. These rehearse either before or after school and lunchtimes. These include:
- Ashdale Secondary College Dance Troupe
- Cheer Leading Troupe
- Ashdale Secondary College Tap Troupe
- Ashdale Cluster Wind Ensemble
- Ashdale Secondary College Drama Club
We also have the Ashdale Cluster Primary Extension Dance Troupe (Year 5 & 6 students from across the cluster schools; Ashdale PS, Madeley PS, Landsdale PS and Carnaby Rise PS).
Instrumental Music School Services (IMSS)
The Department of Education’s instrumental music school services over 400 primary and secondary Western Australian public schools. IMSS provides consultancy, instrumental instruction and ensemble direction, staffing allocation and management, an instrumental loan, maintenance and repair service, a resource centre and varied enrichment activities for students.
Music is one of the five art forms within the arts learning area. It contributes to both the overarching outcomes and the four arts-specific outcomes of the curriculum framework, and the specialised study of instrumental music further enhances student learning in music.
IMSS provides instrumental music services to more than 450 public primary and secondary schools, reaching more than 15,000 students from Years 3 to 12. In addition to weekly small group instrumental lessons, students have opportunities to participate in enrichment music activities which combine students working collaboratively across year levels and with students from other schools.
Not all instruments are offered in all schools, school regions and networks.