Dulwich High School of Visual Arts and Design


Dulwich High School of Visual Arts & Design is a government coeducational specialist secondary school, with speciality in visual arts and design, located in Dulwich Hill, an inner western suburb of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
Re-established in 2003, it is the only specialist visual arts and design high school in New South Wales. The school is run by the New South Wales Department of Education and Training. The School offers a comprehensive education program with a strong focus on visual arts and design throughout all years and subjects.
DHSVAD is affiliated with the National Art School, The Design Centre Enmore TAFE, The Art Gallery of NSW.
The School also runs a program called NEO. Year 8-10 Students engage in visual art and design-orientated workshops each week according to area of interest. Subjects include: Web Design, Robotics, Cartooning, Animation, Jewellery Making, Ceramics, Food Design, Design Your School Museum and the most popular being Draw/Design/Make.

History

The school officially became a Visual Arts and Design High School in 2003 as the first visual arts and design high school in New South Wales.

School facilities

The campus is located on Seaview Street, Dulwich Hill off Marrickville Road. The campus has gardens, a paved playground, a grass oval and school vegetable garden. The various faculties within the school are located in different areas ranging from A to I Block including a covered basketball court and a gymnasium located near the school canteen area.
There are various murals around the school produced by the "Street Art Club" as well as artwork displayed around the corridors and foyer areas. The school library provides a relaxed environment. The Visual Arts speciality building built in 2004, features specially designed visual arts studios, digital media/computer room equipped with design software, an art gallery and sculpture garden. There are two additional art classrooms, a senior students Body of Work Studio, and artist-in-residence room, ceramics room and photographic darkroom facilities. The office of Artexpress is also situated on the school campus.

Faculty

The faculties in the school include:
The student body is just over 650 students.
Year 7 intake is streamed into half local area intake and half visual arts and design specialist intake.
Students are picked for the specialist stream based on portfolio, interview and academic history. Interview times for year 6 students applying for year 7 occur twice a year. Years 7 and 8 students receive additional allocated class time for visual arts lessons.

School life

The school focuses on the "3 Rs" as its core guiding principle: Respect, Relationships and Responsibility. Students come from a diverse range of cultural, ethnic and economic backgrounds. The school is known for its acceptance of all kinds of people and is recognised as a "Proud School" which promotes equality of LGBTI identifying people. Diversity Day is an anticipated event in the school calendar.

Student leadership

Prefect body

The prefecture at DHSVAD consists of eight year 12 students who are elected by both their fellow students and teachers.

Student Representative Council

Dulwich High School of Visual Arts and Design has an elected Student Representative Council composed of up to four students from each grade and the two School Captains and Vice Captains. The SRC's primary objectives are to provide input on policies that affects students and to run charity fundraisers

Support unit

The school has a total of three classes that cater to the specific learning needs of students from Year 7 to Year 12.
There are two classes specialising in support for students with intellectually moderate disability :
Olley Class – Year 7, Year 8 and Year 9
Nolan Class – Year 10, Year 11 and Year 12
There is one class specialising in support for students with intellectually mild disability
Preston Class – Years 7-12.