GCS Arts Department

     The arts are essential to the education of Grace Church School students. The Arts Department provides a comprehensive arts education program with classes in visual art, dance, music and drama at all grade levels. This integrated curriculum focuses on self-expression and the development of creative ability and offers students the opportunity to learn skills that encourage individual thought.
      In Grace Church School’s Robert Lehman Curriculum in the Visual Arts, children learn to use craypas, tempera, clay, and papier-mâché. As children move through the curriculum, the media expand to include experiences in drawing, painting, sculpture, printmaking and ceramics. Along with free-choice painting, students create portraits, abstract works, pictures of animals, people, plants, and cityscapes. In addition, children work collaboratively on large-scale pieces. Formal concepts such as perspective, composition and contrast are introduced in the later years. Ceramic work progresses from pottery to highly original sculptures, glazed and fired in the school’s kilns.
      Music education, including vocal and instrumental instruction, is taught from Junior Kindergarten through Grade Eight. Beginning in Grade Three, each student plays a recorder; in Grade Four, students may elect to study flute, violin or cello. Children in Grades Four and Five who do not choose to study an instrument become members of the GCS Chorus and sixth, seventh and eighth graders may choose to join the GCS Singers. Both singing groups perform regularly throughout the year. Children in Grades Three through Eight are eligible to audition for the Grace Church Boy Choir or the St. Cecilia Choir.
      Drama is introduced through classroom productions in the Lower School. Upper School students study techniques of performance and learn about the origin and styles of theater in their own as well as in other cultures. Major theatrical productions are staged each semester and are open to students in Grades Six through Eight. 

      Children in the Early Childhood Division attend Music and Dance class twice a week. In these classes they learn songs and dances and begin to explore rhythm and tempo.  Lower School Dance builds on the foundation of the Early Childhood program, as children begin to create their own choreography and learn tap and folk dance. Performances are regularly scheduled throughout the year.
      Using New York City as a cultural resource, classes regularly visit museums, galleries, and architectural sites, and attend performances of theater and dance.