The Digital Art Suite is situated within the Art Department and has been  purpose built to facilitate the growth of this exciting medium within the curriculum and enable students to explore their ideas through new technologies.

The suite has excellent facilities including the latest industry standard software running on Macs.  Students have access to a wide range of video editing equipment, cameras, drawing tablets and scanners and use Adobe CS3, Final Cut Express and Cinema 4D as well as I Can Animate and Apple’s iLife suite to collaborate, produce and share their ideas. 

In Key Stage 3 all students undertake 3 digital projects; In Year 7 students are taught Photoshop and learn how to manipulate images in the style of an artist, in Year 8 they learn the concepts of animation and create their own moving picture, and in year 9 they explore their own identity by expressing themselves through a digitally produced montage which is put on to an ID Card.

During Key Stage 4 students may continue to pursue projects digitally through to a final piece, or instead use the digital suite to facilitate their ideas which they may explore through a more traditional approach.

As of 2007, Year 9 Students can choose to take a course in Animation as an option in Key Stage 4.  Animation is used in websites; advertisements; films; computer games; special effects; titling; television etc, and can lead to employment in many different creative fields such as a director; animator; storyboard artist; model maker; special effects animator and compositor.  For further information please view our NCFE animation pages.

The facilities are also used for a wide range of extra curricular activities including Moving Pictures, a film and animation Club which has won both local and national awards for several of the student’s films; Digital Art Club which takes place each lunch time; Digital Primary Sessions for our primary feeder schools; INCA - a week long Inclusion Arts project, and Arts Award, which is an opportunity for young people to develop their own arts practice. 

The Digital Art Suite has also been the focus for art students chosen to participate on the SJNCC Summer Schools. Work produced on these Summer Schools can be viewed at the following links; Summer Sessions and What If.

The room is managed full time by the Digital Arts Manager who provides training and technical support, as well as some teaching and running of various extra-curricular digital projects.