We are delighted to announce the launch of the exciting all-new Faculty of Art, Design, and Food ‘Festival of Creative Arts’.

The ‘Festival of Creative Arts’ takes the form of three separate competition challenges to run over the term until Tuesday 7th February 2023. The theme for all three challenges is ‘Patterns and Patterning’ and the competitive contests across the creative arts are open to all Years across Queen’s College.

There will be points awarded for all pupil entries and tiered prizes for all winners with different categories across the school including awarding the new Queen’s College ‘Creative Arts Trophy’.

A VIP panel of external subject-specific judges from outside the school, for each discipline, will look at all the pupil entries on the afternoon of Wednesday 8th February 2023 before a huge ‘Gala Display Evening’ on the same day at Queen’s College at 6 pm.

The first challenge is to make a piece of artwork for Art, the second a moving kinetic sculpture for Design and Technology, and the third a plated Tunnock’s Teacake for Food and Nutrition.

Those pupils interested in Art they can produce a piece of traditional artwork or a crossover with different creative disciplines, and it can be a piece of art, textiles or photography, or a combination of all three. Mrs Cade, Head of Art said, “it is a wide-open brief in Art because we pupils to have the creative freedom to design something that they are proud of and holds real meaning. The most important thing to us is that you have fun creating an exciting piece of Art based on the theme of Patterns and Patterning”.

For Design and Technology, pupils have been asked to create a kinetic or moving sculpture by coming up with their own design, by whatever method they like whether that it is drawing, painting or collaging it and once come up with their pattern they need to make it move by whatever means they want. Mr Higgs, Head of Design and Technology said, “I’m really excited to see what the pupils come up with creating a moving sculpture based on Patterns and Patterning”.

Finally, over in Food and Nutrition, it is all about creating a piece of culinary art with a stunning plated Tunnock’s Teacake. Pupils have been asked to use their artistic creativity and food preparation skills to style a plate of food with a Tunnock’s Teacake on the theme of ‘Patterns and Patterning’.  Pupils will be judged on the use of a wide range of finishing techniques such as garnishing and decoration and the food styling should be accurately presented and finished to an excellent standard.

For each challenge, the Faculty of Art, Design, and Food will support pupils to explore the creative arts in greater depth in each discipline. We encourage all pupils to ask their teachers about when and how they can be involved including time after school and at weekends and all the resources available to them in school.

Mr Mann, Head of the Faculty of Art, Design, and Food said, “we want to promote the many dimensions of the creative arts sector and celebrate the creative culture of our school community and at the same time we want to create further opportunities for all pupils to showcase their fantastic work outside lessons, in keeping with our school motto: ‘we learn not for school but for life’. We invite entries from this week onwards to join us in this exciting new ‘Festival of Creative Arts’ at Queen’s College