Arts
At Le Jardin Academy, the arts are highly regarded, and students engage in visual arts, performing arts, and the arts through design. Students Pre-Kindergarten to Grade 12 enjoy broad exposure to visual and performing arts as an integral part of an expanding curriculum.
The IB uses the arts to inspire a wide array of creativity. Pre-K to Grade 5 students receive visual arts and music instruction. Middle and High School offerings also include Visual Arts, Chorus, Band, as well as the popular Theater program, a creative portal grounded in devised theater and playwriting.
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In the Diploma Programme (Grades 11-12) each student designs their own personalized well-rounded collection of two-year courses. Students may select Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film, and/or Computer Science.
In Grade 6, students rotate through Visual Arts, Drama, Chorus and Band and in Grades 7-10 students select one year-long course. Grade 6 students take informational design with an emphasis on graph design, film and infographic creation. Grade 7 students take computer science where they apply their coding skills from lower skills to transition into Python, CAD and other programming tools. In Grade 8, students take product design in which students engage in interior design, architecture, naval architecture and design of products. In Grades 9-10 students in design continue to build on these skills in executing the design process while transferring skills from other subject areas like science and math.
The same whole-child approach continues in the Middle Years Programme (Grades 6-10). Art is not an elective but an essential component of learning in the MYP. Students not only develop skills in these areas, but develop a mindset around the importance of critiquing work of their own and others and appreciating aesthetics while creating for real people. Throughout each design course, students are engaging in the design cycle to meet an actual client’s needs. In chorus, students are writing their own music scores, and in drama students are writing and producing their own plays.
In the Primary Years Program (PK-5) students learn through six transdisciplinary units of inquiry, through which arts and or design are taught. While students learn from music and visual arts specialists at designated times throughout the week, students are also spending additional time with these specialist teachers during extended flex time based on the unit of inquiry. For example in Grade 2’s Caves to Canvas Unit, the art and media teachers are working closely with students during this six week period about the evolution of visual arts from caves to graph design today.