CAPA is an active and enthusiastic department which includes the subjects Drama, Entertainment Industry, Music, Photographic & Digital Media and Visual Arts.
The CAPA Department at KHHS creates opportunities to make meaningful and relevant links to learning by enabling students to perform and display their works in a variety of settings within the school and wider community.
KHHS provides the following specialist facilities for students studying CAPA subjects:
| Drama |
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Drama is taught at KHHS through years 9 and 10, and for the Higher School Certificate as a two unit, UAI subject.
Performance opportunities as well as extra-curricular acting training opportunities exist for drama students throughout the year, including the Metropolitan North Drama Camp and Drama Festival, showcases and official functions.
The school musical is a biennial event, alternating with a showcase production, giving enthusiastic and talented students the chance to develop and demonstrate their skills in front of their peers and family.
KHHS has participated in the annual Shakespeare Schools Competition in a number of categories, reaching the state finals in the movement section. In 2008 KHHS were represented in the Regional Drama Festival in both comedy and movement.
Students from KHHS have in the past successfully auditioned for and been selected to perform with the State Junior and Senior Drama Ensemble as well as the State Senior Drama Company, all of which are run as an extra curricular activity, by the Performing Arts Unit. Training with these ensembles and companies leads to performance tours throughout NSW as well as performances at the State Drama Festival and plays at the Seymour Centre.
Throughout years 9-12 students engage in the making, performing and analyising of a variety of theatre styles such as Improvisation, Playbuilding, Commedia dell Arte, Melodrama, Expressionism, Realism, Slapstick, Parody, Dada, Absurdism, 20th century Actor Trainers, Australian Theatre and Hybrid Theatre creating a well rounded experience of theatre styles, cultures and histories. Students produce design works in set and costume and perform, monologues, duologues, original group playbuilds as well as published scripted material. A knowledge of the development of theatre throughout the ages is aquired.
Most importantly drama gives students the skills to engage audiences through the mastery of the elements of Drama. Drama increases confidence, communication skills, oral literacy skills, problem solving skills and interpersonal skills such as the skills to work in and mediate group projects. These sorts of skills are highly regarded and sort for in all work place environments. The skills and knowledge acquired through the study of Drama may be further utilised and employed including, but not confined to, the arts. media, theatre, radio, television, film, communications, design agencies, advertising and community cultural development.
| Entertainment Industry |
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The Entertainment Industry Curriculum complements the current Courses in Drama, and Music that are widely offered and provides opportunities for experiences in the entertainment industry.
The entertainment industry is a diverse industry covering a wide range of occupational areas including technical operations, props, scenic art, set building, audio, lighting, staging, vision systems, customer service and front of house.
The Entertainment Industry Curriculum provides an opportunity for students to gain nationally recognised industry qualification "Certificate III in Live Production, Theatre and Events
(Technical Operations" as part of their Higher School Certificate. Apart from being nationally recognised, these qualifications articulate into higher-level qualifications within the entertainment industry which students may pursue post-school.
| Music |
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Music is taught at KHHS from years 7-12, providing students with a curriculum structure that is adaptable enough to meet the needs and abilities of students whose interests range from the broadly based to the pursuit of specialised musical knowledge and skills. Music in Years 7-8 is a mandatory course which covers a range of topics with a particular focus on Australian Music and Art Music. Music Elective Yr 9 - 10 provides students with opportunities to extend their musical knowledge and serve as a pathway for further formal study in Music 1, Music 2 and Extension in Stage 6.
Performance opportunities exist for students ranging from; in school recitals and concerts to community events, festivals and competitions. We encourage musicians to be involved in our variety of ensembles including: Concert Band, Stage Band, Chamber Strings, Guitar Ensemble, Sing NSW, and Wind Ensemble. Students also have the opportunity to attend concert series at the Opera House and Sydney Conservatorium and use facilities including Australian Music library.
At KHHS students have the opportunity to use latest technology to compose and record their own work using the keyboard lab fitted with 15 computers, MIDI keyboards, mixing hardware and software such as Music Ace, Acid, Vegas, Sounde Forge, Sibelius 4, Auralia and Musition.
The purpose of Music 1 is to provide students with the opportunity to acquire knowledge, skills, understanding and attitudes within a broad musical context, including Contemporary Popular music. Students will develop in each of the individual areas of performing, composing and listening.
The purpose of Music 2 is to provide students with opportunities to extend their musical knowledge with a focus on Western Art music and it will serve as a pathway for further formal study in tertiary institutions or in fields that use their musical knowledge. Students who study Music 2 are also eligible to study and extra unit for the HSC Music Extension course.
| Photographic and Digital Media |
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This course is offered as an elective for years 9 -12.
It allows opportunities for students to investigate photographic and digital media in greater depth and breadth than through the Visual Arts elective course.
Photographic and Digital Media plays a significant role in the curriculum by providing specialised learning opportunities to enable students to understand and explore the nature of photographic and digital media as an important field of artistic practice, conceptual knowledge and technological procedures.
The broad areas of photography and digital media as print, interactive and moving forms are extremely relevant and of fundamental interest to students. Much of their knowledge of the world and their notions of cultural and self-identity come from the photographic and digital images that permeate the visual arts and design, television, film, video, internet, mass media and multimedia.
The evolution of digital technologies has altered the nature of photographic practice and has created new practice with many variables. This course provides opportunities for students to investigate the ways in which these fields of artistic practice have been utilised over the past century.
| Visual Arts |
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Visual Arts is taught at KHHS from years 7-12, providing learning opportunities designed to encourage students to understand the visual arts, including the different kinds of creative works they, and others, make. In Visual Art, Students are encouraged to work in a variety of media and technologies and are given opportunities to visit Art Galleries and exhibitions.
The syllabus identifies the structural, subjective, postmodern and cultural frames as a basis for understanding the visual arts. Each frame represents a different assumption about the visual arts and provides the grounds for addressing questions related to artistic meaning and value. The frames offer a basis for practical choice and alternative grounds for investigating ideas in art. Each frame provides alternative ways to examine and explore the world as content and its artistic and aesthetic representation. The frames are not intended to be exhaustive nor final but are redefined and unfold over time.
The knowledge, understanding, skills and values gained from the Visual Arts Years 7–10 Syllabus assist students in building conceptual, practical and critical skills. These can be applied to the diverse fields of art, design and other contexts including employment, enterprise and pathways of learning.