LICEO ARTISTICO-ISTITUTO STATALE D’ARTE GAETANO CHIERICI
Website: www.liceochierici.re.it
The Artistic High School offers an educational path focused on the arts. After a common two-year period, it is divided into 4 specializations: Design (Fashion Design, Jewelry Design, Furniture Design, Ceramic Design); Architecture and Environment; Figurative Arts; Multimedia Audiovisual. Laboratories are privileged places for research and experimentation within an active learning method. At the end of their studies, students obtain a diploma in design, referring to the chosen section. The aim of the studies is to prepare students for the profession of junior designer or to continue with the possibility of accessing university degree courses, Academies of Fine Arts, Higher Institutes for Artistic Industries, and post-diploma training courses. The High School, unique in Italy, activated the ESABAC course from the 2015-16 academic year and the Cambridge pathway in the 2017-2018 academic year, being the only school in Reggio Emilia to do so. Two sections are dedicated to innovative experimental teaching.
Today, there are 130 teachers and 1,060 students at the G. Chierici Artistic High School. They enter the first class at the age of fourteen and come from almost all the lower secondary schools in the area as it is the only artistic high school in the city and the province. The transformation of the school into a High School has brought about a significant change in teaching and the school curriculum. In recent years, students enrolling in the Artistic High School have been more aware of the school’s demands in terms of educational outcomes; therefore, the starting level of the students is higher, although the vocational character of the High School remains, characterized by its openness and welcome to all students, supporting them with didactic recovery strategies both in the introductory phase of the common two-year period and in the subsequent phase of specialization.
In recent years, the High School has been a beneficiary of ERASMUS funding for staff mobility (REACH project), involving 24 teachers in mobility activities. REACH – Reading Europe Art Culture Heritage aims not only to read art in Europe through linguistic skills but also to achieve-build a Europe promoted and realized by young European artists who believe in the richness of its artistic heritage. Furthermore, it was accredited in 2021 as a school to carry out staff and student mobility under the ERASMUS KA120 School call. Actually (third year of accreditation), it has carried out more than 200 mobilities, mostly for students. In 2022, it won as a coordinating school an ERASMUS KA210 project on a small scale: ECODESIGN: SCHOOLS in EUROPE, designing sustainable art objects with the support of enterprises. It participated in the MOVET project (Mobility for Vocational and Educational Training), coordinated by the E35 Foundation of the Province of Reggio Emilia. It has participated as a coordinating body in national and regional projects with the aim of continuing its path of internationalization and transmitting professional skills and European citizenship to students to rediscover and promote the artistic value of cultural heritage through an increasingly dense network of professional exchanges that involve students in the major productive and cultural realities of the European territory. The staff consists of 130 teachers and 40 technical and administrative staff. Teachers meet in Departments, work synergistically in Class Councils and different Commissions. Management is represented by the Vice Presidency Staff, the Functional Roles, the Digital Animator, the European project Coordinator who operates in a team expanded to include Erasmus, CLIL, eTwinning commissions. The coordinator of the PCTO (Curricular Paths for Transversal Skills and Orientation) paths in Italy and abroad is an important reference point in the planning and management of activities in collaboration with the 28 PCTO coordinators of the Class Councils.