Art teachers go above and beyond to KickstART students' HSC

14 November 2016

A new batch of Tweed HSC Visual Arts students gained added inspiration to kick off their course, when students and teachers gathered at the Tweed Regional Gallery & Margaret Olley Art Centre recently.

Ten committed teachers and 69 students spent an intensive day at the Gallery, working closely with its collection, for a Student Enrichment Day to jump-start their learning and develop strategies to prepare for their HSC Visual Arts course.

The KickstART day at the Gallery has become an annual tradition for a dedicated group of Tweed high school teachers and their students, known collectively as T5, giving senior students an opportunity to engage with real artworks and participate in a range of workshops facilitated by their teachers.

This year’s KickstART participants were also able to utilise artworks on loan from the National Gallery of Australia, in the touring exhibition Resolution: new Indigenous photomedia.

Murwillumbah High School teacher Jodie MacKenzie said: “The opportunity to have this event at Tweed Regional Gallery is one of the most successful aspects of the day and reminds our students how privileged they are to have such a wonderful resource in this shire – with incredible artworks by globally renowned artists - freely available to us and right on our doorstep.”

The Gallery’s Education & Audience Development Officer, Jodi Ferrari, said the district and the students were just as fortunate to have “such passionate Visual Arts teachers working in our schools”.

“The process of bringing the students together and the inspiring artworks on display undoubtedly brought great motivation and momentum for their course,” she said.

Ms Ferrari said the day’s highlights included the students sharing their Visual Art process diaries across the floor of the Gallery, then dividing into small groups to discuss their proposed final body of work.

The students will continue to work on these projects into 2017.

“It was a terrific collaboration that will be invaluable in firing them up for their HSC studies,” she said.