Aesthetics

Aesthetics Department vision

• To develop inquisitiveness towards the Arts.

• To develop student voice and choice through the Arts.

• To advocate appreciation and enjoyment for the Arts across cultures and perspectives.

• To develop the values of Respect, Responsibility and Resilience through the Arts.

Belief

Every Xinmin student should be able to appreciate the Arts, develop through the Arts and contribute actively through the Arts.

Approaches

Create
Students get to exercise their creativity when they are allowed to share their perspectives and ideate towards Arts presentations of different forms. Students enjoy creating original pieces across the Art forms of Music, Drama and Art during curriculum lessons. They are facilitated towards this creation and are encouraged to think critically about their creative process via reflection points from the start to the end of the presentation. This enhances their learning and allows them to practice their critical thinking skills.

For instance, the Lower Secondary Music Programme allows students to work as an ensemble and as soloists towards creating and improvising musical performances with original beats or rhythms using physical instruments as well as music created with the help of apps like Bandlabs. Art lessons steer students towards considering perspectives of 2D and 3D works. The end result ranges from creative and eye-catching paintings, agamographs and tunnel books that can be found showcased around Xinmin. Their art-work even goes online through the use of applications like FlipaClip that help build creative animations. RefleXions@ Xinmin allows students to ‘play’ via Drama as they explore stories and provide their perspective and responses through Dramatic performances.

Connect
Arts Education in Xinmin allows students to connect with one another, with the world and draw connections across various subjects relevant to their daily life.

Students work collaboratively across all the Arts Education opportunities in Xinmin. It is through collaborative work that students learn to manage themselves and their relationships, whilst gaining a deeper understanding of the world around them. With Art, Music and RefleXions@Xinmin (Drama), all encouraging group-based collaborations whether physically or through online platforms like Padlet, Jamboard and Google Classroom, students are continually reflecting upon their ability to consider perspectives of their group mates and leading one another through presentations.

Students also have opportunities to sample the cultural offerings from around the world! World Music exposure allows students to do things like appreciate Malay rhythmic music. Art lessons allow students to understand ceramics from Singaporean Ceramic makers whilst Drama O-level lessons provide students an understanding of the influences of European practitioners like Konstantin Stanislavski and Bertolt Brecht.

The sensemaking does not stop there with skills and knowledge utilised across subjects. Students develop their awareness of the world around them and learn more about what makes Singapore unique through an exploration that encompasses Music, Art and Drama. Soundscapes from Music lessons are utilised to create performances in RefleXions that are heavily influenced by the perspectives explored in Art lessons! Through RefleXions, students use Drama as a means to evaluate decision making in their daily lives and how they can best negotiate building relationships with friends, family and the wider community.

Sharing their Art presentations with their peers and the wider community is also highly encouraged and gives students a massive sense of pride in whatever they do. Students are given the opportunity to showcase their artistic talents to students of Xinmin through hallway exhibitions as well as through platforms like school major events such as Speech Day, Xinmin Arts Week and Homecoming. Recently, students got their pieces featured in the Alumni Exhibition that was open to the public. This gave the students a sense of pride in their work!

Cultivate
Arts Education in Xinmin believes strongly in cultivating a love for the arts whilst building up student character. Deeply rooted with an objective of providing students with 21st Century Competencies, the programme is grounded on producing students who actively work on being resilient, responsible and respectful individuals.

All Arts Education programmes focus on students exercising self-directedness in their creative process which tests their resilience and responsibility towards the task. Being allowed to take ownership of their work comes with them showing strong character to follow through to their presentations. Teachers facilitate lessons with the development of student character in mind as they reflect not just about the lessons, process and learning but also about both their and their peer’s contribution.

Above all, the programme is inclusive for all students and aims towards students enjoying the different arts opportunities afforded to them. Students may not leave Xinmin as practitioners or artistes but we aim towards students who see the joy, beauty and developmental opportunities in the Arts.

Inquiry-based Learning
Developing Curious Learners
Reflective thinking is encouraged across all art-forms with teachers actively facilitating students’ responses to the various stimuli they are provided. Students are curious learners and critical thinkers as they make connections between the art-forms and the world around them.

Students develop as reflective critical thinkers through:

• Analysing the possibilities offered in the world around them.

• Exploring and exchanging perspectives and ideas.

• Application of their learning towards expressing themselves creatively.

• Reviewing and responding to Art form exposure programmes/learning journeys.

• Peer evaluation

Use of E-Pedagogy for Active Learning
Across all art-forms, the exchanges of videos, sound clips and the use of shared spaces facilitate live learning and discussions. Students get to collaborate and share ideas with their peers. They also get to showcase their work to receive feedback and responses from teachers and peers.

Students are also exposed to technology in their learning through digital art platforms on their Personal Learning Device (PLD). During Art lessons, students are guided through the intricacies of drawing via digital devices as well as the added features they can take advantage of. Collaborative portfolios parked online for peers to observe and critique work allows for Assessment for Learning. Students are also excited to create their own Artistic animations through E-platforms like the Flipaclip application.

For Music, critical thinking and reflections are done via E- platforms like Padlet as students utilise them to critique performance pieces. This allows for students to enhance their performance standards as the feedback derived assesses their learning and promotes a culture of active sharing and collaboration. At a higher level, students are even allowed to compose and mix their own pieces of music/soundscapes as they are guided through the utilisation of the online Bandlab application.

In Drama lessons, students are able to record their rehearsals and review their recordings with the rubrics given. In addition, students from other groups will be able to give feedback and critique their peer’s performances on their PLDs. This would allow them to exchange thoughts and perspectives which allows them to understand different points of view.