What do you love about Art/Graphics/Photography at Thomas Rotherham College?
Staff and Support Available – 49%
The support given from staff members is this years’ most loved aspect of the TRC art department. We are so pleased to hear that the help, guidance, and just the general ‘being on hand’ from all of us is something that is not only appreciated but something that stands out as one of your favourite parts of the department. So thanks everyone, this is great to hear!
‘Appreciate the support from all the staff – always someone to ask for help’
‘All teachers are always willing to help’
‘Amazing passionate teachers’
‘The equality. Staff are amazing at making people feel comfortable and accepted 😊’
Open Door and Friendly Environment – 41%
In close second is the classic mention of our open door policy along with the welcoming and friendly atmosphere of the department as a whole. We try really hard to make sure that our rooms promote a positive working environment that is both welcoming and productive. Our open door gets mentioned every year in learner voice as it is something that is so useful and is clearly loved by many of our students.
’Welcome in the department any time’
‘Good working atmosphere’
‘Friendly environment that makes the department feel separate to the rest of college (in a good way)’
‘Friendly atmosphere!’
Access to Facilities and Resources – 28%
We try to provide as many techniques as we can to our students here at TRC (space and budget providing!), so it’s great to hear that our facilities like our darkroom and printmaking equipment is something you love about the department.
‘Darkroom facilities!’
‘We have access to lots of processes, materials and techniques’
‘The opportunity and resources to make a wide variety of practical work’
Materials Available and the Art Shop – 12%
I think this may be the first time our materials in the shop have been deemed as ‘inexpensive’, but that is fantastic to hear! We sell all our equipment at cost price, so we do try and make these as cheap as possible for our students while still providing a wide range of materials for them to use and purchase.
‘Access to high quality inexpensive materials’
’Love the materials available and the shop’
A few honourable mentions…
· The Printer
· Trips!
· Useful activities on improving sketchbook pages
· Homework and lesson objectives always clear
· Purple book bingo
What do you wish for in Art/Graphics/Photography at Thomas Rotherham College?
More room to work outside lessons – 33%
This seemed to be referring to upstairs and downstairs. The left hand side of the upstairs room is always available for you to use in study halls/outside your lessons, however we do realise there is not a lot of space here and it does tend to get quite full. As we have a taught lesson in every block downstairs this year is it inevitable that downstairs also gets quite full on a daily basis. The only thing we can suggest here is to ask that if you are not using the studio space to do work, please give up your space for someone who needs it. This is one of our ‘Studio Rules’ which can be seen all over the department, asking students not to hog studio space.
We are a very small department for so many students, so we all need to do our bit to make sure everyone can come in and do their work during frees or study halls. We will also have a look at table arrangements upstairs to see if we can gain some space by doing some rejigging. However, unless we get an extension – which we would LOVE!! – there isn’t much we can do I’m afraid!
More trips – 18%
We do two trips as standard over your 2 years – YSP and Manchester. However, over the last year we have started going Life Drawing at ROAR and visiting Wentworth Woodhouse with Photography, so we are slowly increasing the amount of trips we go on as a department. Trips take a lot of organising and it is difficult to fit them in without disrupting our schemes of work. You are allowed 3 days out from each year of you’re A Level for trips, this is to minimise disruption to other subjects. So we have wriggle room for one and a half more trips per year…… we will bare this in mind and see what we can do!
More printer credits – 15%
We expected this to get a mention! A few years ago we managed to get our students £5 more than students in college due to the demand our subjects have for printing work. Art students get this every term along with the standard amount paid into your printer credits. However, this clearly still isn’t enough! Our students reps also mentioned this in our last meeting with them. We are looking to speak to someone about this as it is not something we can control and not our decision, so we can’t do much about this I’m afraid! But like I said, we are looking into this.
Less work – 10%
This was taken from various comments; some may not have specifically said this but it seemed to fall under this category. The amount of work we set is only as much as we feel you need to achieve a great A-Level. A Levels in creative subjects are hard and time consuming. If we didn’t set the amount of work we do, some of you may not achieve the grades you are aiming for! We realise it is a lot to do, however it should only take you the recommended 4 and a half hours outside of lessons to complete, any more time spent on it should be considered stretch and challenge.
More guillotines – 5%
It is staggering that a few years ago this was 47% of one Learner Voice wishes! Since then though we have gained an extra guillotine downstairs and with 2 up and 2 down we seem to be managing for the most part. So unless this becomes a huge issue again, we will leave this for now.
Nothing! – 3%
Very kind! Thank you! 😊
A few honourable mentions…
Art department party at the end of exams
This is called our exhibition! 😊
Heater in the darkroom
We are looking really hard to find one of these. They aren’t made anymore so we are trying to find a second hand one online and calling round our camera/darkroom contacts, however print dryers seem to be few and far between!
Computers that work
Moodle being down and having more individual storage were also mentioned. We work hard with computer services to try and keep everything running smoothly and sort problems out as quick as we can when they occur, however there do seem to be a lot of issues this year that we are struggling to sort quickly! We will keep fighting this our end, that is all we can do.
An enforcement of awareness for other people working in the department
This is a big issue for us too. After the A2 Hand In the rooms were completely tidied, this took us 2-3 hours to work our way through the department and sort everything out. So we are really disappointed to see that now, less than two weeks later, the rooms are looking like a bombsite again. This isn’t an issue however of us keeping things tidy, we do not have the hands or hours in the day to keep on top of rooms when students leave it in such a state, it is, like the student who wrote this comment very rightly said, about a culture in the department to be aware of the space you and that other people will be using it after you. We have just started a rota system asking classes at the end of each day to tidy the rooms, hopefully this will help, but this is not something that we can control, it is down to fellow students to - as our studio rules say! - be kind and be respectful.
Colour developing chemicals
If only! However none of us have been trained in how to do this so we would not know where to start! We can look into this as it would be AMAZING! But I imagine this is a whole different process to black and white developing, so we’ll see how complicated it is!
Lessons on Photoshop editing
We are looking to start doing Photoshop tutorials on youtube to help with the general basics – would this be helpful? If so, let us know what you would like to see us focus on!
Bigger studio
Yes please! We realise the studio upstairs in art is very small and can only just cram in our 4 lights and two backdrops. However, there is no where else for this to go in the department. Once again unless we can get a lovely new extension built I don’t think this is possible unfortunately. However there is always the fancy studio up in Media for you to use which is much bigger than ours 😊
Graphics tablets
Will look into it!
