Art & Design

Art and design are popular and well established at St Chris and pupils regularly achieve entry to the most prestigious art colleges and design degree courses. For more information please see our results and achievements page here.

St Chris strongly values creative design and skilled craft and we support pupils to develop a high level of practical skills across a wide range of materials.

Our aim is to encourage children to be curious about the world they live in, to look at it with fresh eyes and to develop their ability to think and act creatively. We aim to encourage exploration and discovery by creating an environment where personal growth and individuality are valued.

The Art and Design Faculty is comprised of two departments which work closely together. The Art Department contains art and ceramic studios, dedicated computer suite, two darkrooms, Sixth Form studio spaces, a gallery and lecture theatre.

The 3D Design Department is based around a well-equipped design technology workshop; this includes facilities for laminating, brazing, welding, laser cutting, forming, etc.  There is also a design room with a suite of computers.

There are a host of regular co-curricular activities including pottery, enamelling, mosaic and photography clubs.

SHED

SHED is our 3D Design club which takes place several times each week in support of exam candidates and younger pupils.

For pupils in Years 7 to 9 (I to III Group) SHED is an opportunity to use the supervised workshops to carry on with class practicals or work on other small scale projects.

SHED for Years 10 to 13 (IV Group to Upper Sixth) is an opportunity to work on coursework practicals in supervised workshops.

 Recycled Fashion Show

The St Chris Recycled Fashion Show is now in its 25th year and goes from strength to strength. Each year the show follows a theme, with pupils, designing and making their costumes out of recycled materials.

The costumes are modelled in a catwalk show, often featuring over 70 costumes, by students from schools across Hertfordshire, with the winners decided by a panel of judges and proceeds going to charity. Following the show, over 30 of the best costumes are displayed in an exhibition at the Letchworth Community Museum for a week.

The Recycled Fashion Show is an excellent opportunity for both designing and making, modelling and exhibiting and St Chris students always throw themselves into the challenge with some incredible results!

 Art Festival 2017

St Chris runs a summer festival each year where the whole school comes off timetable for a few days to take part in a range of workshops and performances.

The St Chris Arts Festival took place in 2017 and was a dedicated week of activities, workshops and performances: from manga to gospel music; street art to flower animals; synchronised swimming to designing and making a mechanical art piano.

Events for the wider public included Night at the Musicals, an evening of music from stage and screen hosted in the Broadway Theatre, Letchworth and Lokkhi Terra, a performance of African and Cuban Music from one of the UK’s leading exponents of World Music, guest starring St Chris students in the School’s Theatre.

St Chris students, from the Nursery through to Sixth Form, took part in over forty different events and workshops that mixed creativity with science, maths, English, sport, geography, history and French.

 Highlights included:

  • Illustration Talk and Workshop with children’s book illustrator Marion Deuchars
  • Performance Poetry with Ben Mellor, who won the BBC Radio 4 National Poetry Slam in 2009
  • Freestyle Football with Jamie Knight, one of the UK’s most recognised names in the sport
  • Chinese Dragon Dance and Circus Skills in the Junior School
  • Manga with artist Sonia Leong
  • Street Dance with Urban Strides, who have supported Diversity
  • The Chemistry of Art where students made their own pigments and painted a Pop Art Periodic Table on the side of the Science block
  • Mechanical Art Piano Sculpture created by dissecting an old upright piano
  • Maths meets art when students scaled marked up a large chalk design on the lawn of the Junior School
  • Typography Lecture by graphic designer Jonathan Miller
  • Graphic Novels with expert Paul Register
  • Street Art to update the School’s skate Halfpipe

To see the full festival programme please download here: Download Arts Festival 2017 programme