Arts and Culture at Clifton encompasses visual arts, music, drama, movement and dance.
Clifton has adopted an integrated approach to the staffing of Arts and Culture. The goal is to ensure a cross pollination as well as specialisation of these disciplines. The departmental staff are:
• Jane Cahill
(Visual Arts Grade 1 - 7)
• Brad Roets
(Drama Grade 7)
• Juliette Becker
(Drama Grade 0 - 3 and Music Grade 0 - 4)
• Linda van Zyl
(HOD; Music Grade 5 - 7 and Drama Grade 4 - 6)
Vision:
The multidisciplinary approach enables children to engage with the processes of drama, music, visual art and dance. Children create, explore and express themselves using different skills and through a variety of techniques. In class music lessons structured theory lessons teach the children how to read, write and understand musical sheet work from Grade 3. The theory taught is linked to practice in class activities through recorder groups in Grades 2 to 4 and in the marimba bands in Grades 5 to 7. Drama lessons offer the children the opportunity to express themselves on stage through a variety of games, skits and mini-productions. During Visual Art lessons the focus is on training the eye to improve observation skills. All the basic Art elements are experimented with in the variety of creations the children produce during the year. Movement is incorporated into Drama and Music lessons.
Performance and exhibition excellence is developed through annual drama productions, grade showcases, art exhibitions, and choir and marimba performances as well as in solo and group performances at music concerts. The children are pushed to develop a sense that to be your best, one has to have the discipline to practise, rehearse and perfect. Every year, every child at Clifton will have the opportunity to be on stage in a performance of some kind encompassing all the forms of arts and culture.
Clifton children enjoy creating. Clifton believes the most important part of the creative arts is tapping into every child’s creativity, their sense of fun and excitement, and thereby developing a genuine love for the creative arts that will be a lifelong journey. Aligned with the emphasis Clifton places on understanding the different learning styles of children, the Arts and Culture curriculum allows for flexibility and adaptability for children with different skills, needs and learning styles.
Outside of the normal Arts and Culture lessons the school also has a junior choir, a senior choir, two marimba bands, drumming bands and an Art club. These groups are involved in outings, concerts and public performances. The children also benefit from private tuition in marimbas, recorders, piano, sax, flute, drumming, clarinet, guitar, singing (voice training) and cello.
The activities, enthusiasm and vibrancy of the Arts and Culture department all contribute to making Clifton the ideal place to grow children.
