Mount Lawley SHS

MOUNT LAWLEY SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL

Special Programs - Specialist Visual and Performing Arts

SVAPA 2010 brochure here. SVAPA 2010 application here. (closing date has been extended to 18th May) The Specialist Visual and Performing Arts (SVAPA) course at Mount Lawley Senior High School blends the 4 Arts forms of Drama, Media, Music and Visual Arts.
It is unique in promoting excellence across the arts. It also provides ongoing pathways through the Middle and Senior School for students who want to enrich their learning through the development of arts ideas, skills and processes and creative and critical thinking.
SVAPA is a community within the Middle and Senior School that continues throughout your secondary education.
Being in SVAPA means that you are able to be part of some extraordinary projects that link the Middle with the Senior School and with the broader community.
For example, in 2004 the Year 9 SVAPA students were invited to be part of two projects that further encourage the development of the 4 Arts forms.
The first was presented in our new Tricycle Theatre as the opening event of our annual Artz with Attitude Festival. It was a major project undertaken with Edith Cowan University and the School of Contemporary Arts and Performance. Eighteen of our Year 9 and 10 SVAPA students auditioned to work with a similar number of second year university students and their internationally renowned German director, Ralf Rauker. It has been a rich and powerful learning experience in arts practice. It is unique to Mount Lawley Senior High School . The second occurred in Semester Two when the entire Year 9 SVAPA cohort was be involved in devising and performing in the biennial Maylands Earth and Fire Festival. This has become a part of the SVAPA programme.
	SVAPA students study the 4 Arts forms throughout Year 8 and 9. In Year 10 they are able to choose to follow their main arts' interests. They remain in SVAPA classes for the three years.
In Year 11 and 12 they would be expected to be part of our strong Senior School Arts' programmes. They are able to audition for Certificate IV courses in Jazz and Classical Music at WAAPA @ ECU; Certificate III courses at TAFE in Art and Design and Arts Events Management while completing their Senior School studies. Students who have had interaction with the WAAPA and SOCA courses while in the SVAPA programme have a better chance to gain entry to prestigious Arts' programmes.
Arts courses are strong for ALL students at Mount Lawley Senior High School, but the arts culture and environment offered in SVAPA is about arts' learning that is based on contemporary arts practice of working in multiple art forms and developing an aesthetic awareness on a practical and philosophical level.
All this is above and beyond the rich Middle School learning community provided at Mount Lawley Senior High School .