Art A Level

Applications Open - 1st November 2025

Applications Close - 15th December 2025

Entry Requirements - Candidates are required to obtain a minimum of 35 points from their best six GCSE subjects or equivalent (in the view of the School).

• Points will be on a 1-9 point scale, where Grade 1=1 and 2=2 etc.

• Candidates must also obtain at least a Grade 5 in English and Maths at GCSE or equivalent (in the view of the School).

Candidates must meet the specific requirements for each A Level course they wish to study as published in the 2025 Sixth Form Prospectus, which will be available on the website.

How to Apply - Do not apply through Kent Choices. Please apply via Cranbrook School Website using the following link: https://www.cranbrookschool.co.uk/admissions/sixth-form-admissions/

The main purpose in any Art course is to develop your ability to analyse the visual world. The Sixth Form Art and Design course at Cranbrook is a broad visual education leading to an academic qualification. It could be that an Art A Level will be just part of your wider Sixth Form education, or it might lead you to an Art based career. Art is a way of investigating the culture that surrounds us so at A Level, as contemporary art becomes increasingly important, students' own work gets bigger, more personal and more ambitious. Students keep a work journal, a combination of sketchbook and record of knowledge and ideas, i.e. coursework. Like GCSE, A Level Coursework combines Visual Research (first drawings), Contextual Studies (Critical/ Historical or artist studies), Development (what you do with the first two) and personal responses.

The major difference from GCSE is the range of materials and techniques students use for drawing and the use of life drawings. These are intensive periods of work always taught by someone else. Students have someone new to learn from, new techniques and ideas to feed into coursework and the material that many will need for art school applications.

Studying other artists, what they were doing and how they solved the same problems as us, underpins all art at Cranbrook. The course demands some 'sustained writing' but students make an 'art study' with visual research and analysis for each unit. They must also have first-hand knowledge and undertake primary research, spending time visiting galleries and museums.

Students are expected to think widely when they develop their ideas. Consequently the final pieces will be more personal, taking them into unexpected ways of making and having a greater relevance to the world outside the art room.

GCSE Art Level 6

You could take this course with other advanced level courses such as Critical and Contextual Art to prepare for higher education in areas of art and design, photography, architecture or more general higher education courses.

The normal progression for career art students is to follow a one year Foundation course within their home county before applying for a three year degree course at the college of their choice anywhere in the UK. The list of possible careers is endless, according to recent government statistics Art graduates make up the second largest identifiable industry in the country.