By Ludo Amory

Education and Outreach Officer

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Sunday the 9th of March marked the end of our first HPQ (Higher Project Qualification) Introduction to Art History course! This free course for Year 9 and 10 state students was based at the Courtauld Gallery and online, with students joining from across the UK. Every Sunday morning, for ten weeks, students were introduced to a wide range of art, based around the extraordinary holdings in the Courtauld Gallery.

We started with a thematic approach, with classes such as “How Can Art Tell Stories” and related activities like constructing a narrative collage using imagery from the lesson. Nicola Hepworth, the Lead Teacher for the course, brought her decades of expertise in Art teaching to create an interactive and creative environment.

AHLU’s method of devising classes and courses is always collaborative with the students, listening to and implementing their feedback. These thematic classes, especially “Who’s Excluded?” and “Gender and the Male Gaze”, speak to their interests and passions. It was wonderful though, to introduce them to new areas of art history that they might have overlooked.

A class on Gothic and Medieval Art, focusing on the meticulous details of ivory sculpture, was a big hit. We had incredible student retention, with over 70% of the cohort completing all 10 classes of the course. They had some very positive feedback at the end, including:

• ‍'After experiencing different cultures from around the world, I feel more connected and confident to experience more.’
• ‘It gave me access to new art I'd never seen before and made me aware of how to independently discover new artists.’
• ‘I would like to study Art History at A level and if it is not available at the sixth form I attend, I would like to do it with Art History Link-Up.’
• ‘ The project is so exciting, it’s completely new for me, to be exploring and researching without a teacher telling me exactly what to do, I love it, and of course it’s great preparation for what I hope to do at university.’

What really sets this course apart from our previous work with this age group - over several years with partners including Waddesdon Manor, the National Gallery and Dulwich Picture Gallery - was the accredited award they were able to achieve. A Higher Project Qualification (HPQ) is equivalent to up to half a GCSE. Again, collaboration was at the heart of this work.

Previous work with this age group had indicated that they wanted a concrete award as well as the soft skills provided by art historical training. Our sixth-form students on the Art History for Everyone course at the Courtauld can achieve either an Extended Project Qualification (EPQ) or/and the full Art History A Level. It was a natural step, therefore, to build a course that allowed the younger students to achieve an HPQ. This is a self-directed project course where they each developed their own exhibition concept and built it on an online platform called Art Steps. It is always a worry with these independent projects as a teacher that they won’t do it. Thankfully we were blown away by the finished projects. A quick scan of the titles below shows you how extraordinary these projects were:‍

• ‍Reflections of Self: Confronting Identity, Life, and Mortality
• Unconventional Stories of Love
• Brushstrokes of Survival: Sudanese War Artworks
• The Male Gaze Throughout The Centuries
• What impact have uncredited women had in the art world?
• An exploration of changing interpretations of motherhood throughout art history.

The course was led by Nicola Hepworth, long-standing AHLU teacher, and also a qualified and experienced Art GCSE and Art History A Level teacher. Nicola and the students were supported by our outstanding team of teaching assistants, with the online cohort led by Dr Penny Wickson.

We also greatly benefitted from the guidance of Pearson’s Chair of Project Examiners, and long term AHLU volunteer consultant, Dr John Taylor who commented ‘It has been a delight to visit some of the AHLU HPQ session this term. A combination of a carefully structured programme of teaching with provision of mentor support, as students develop their project work, is an excellent model. It showcases how project qualifications can be used as a vehicle for learning curriculum framework and offers potential for richly transformational skills development and deeper learning.’

The students themselves voted with their feet, attending online and in person each week, making great progress and excellent contributions to break out group discussions, and perhaps just as importantly, making new and very good friends. ‘It is so lovely to feel so relaxed and calm, and to learn in such a collaborative way, and from each other, I wish my school could be more like this’ said one participant.

Given the success of this course and the considerable waiting list, we are piloting it again at the Courtauld from April to July. Application is open on our website until 5pm on the 13th of April: https://www.arthistorylinkup.org/programmes/hpq-introduction-to-art-history

We are so grateful to the Courtauld for hosting us, to our amazing team and students, and above all our extraordinary funders, The Rothschild Foundation, for making such exciting and transformative work possible.

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