Visual Art at junior cycle aims to provide the student with a set of personal attitudes and qualities as well as skills and processes and a sense of the aesthetic. Through practical engagement in the areas of art, craft and design students will develop self-confidence, inquisitiveness, imagination, and creativity. They will also develop authentic, real world problem-solving capacities and the capacity to work over time, as an individual and in groups, on the design and execution of artistic and aesthetic tasks.
The Senior Cycle curriculum ensures that students acquire new skills, knowledge and understanding beyond their everyday experiences, allowing them to make sense of the world around them. Leaving Certificate Art aims to develop the knowledge, skills, understanding and values needed to bring an idea to realisation and to respond to, understand, analyse and evaluate their own work and the work of others. The teaching and learning approaches in Art will place the learner at the centre of the educational experience, developing their ability to learn throughout their lives. Reflective practices will allow the learner to build on their knowledge and develop their capacity for critical and analytical thinking.