Bottesford Juniors Creative Triumph!

After our very successful Teacher's Twilight back in April this year, Bottesford Juniors' Arts Co-ordinator, Mrs Horsewood, embarked on a brave journey to encourage all children in the school to get creative!

Using a template presented by Mrs Fox AST and Art Co-ordinator for Brumby Junior School, Mrs Horsewood asked each of the teachers to come up with a creative workshop that they could deliver for four Fridays in the lead up to a final showcase event.

Workshops such as cross stich, computerised art, shadow puppetry, dance, music and stop frame animation among lots of other exciting things. Hayley, our Education Officer was honored to have been invited as a special guest, to the performance morning on 4th July. The event was expertly put together, with parents invited as the audience members. Hayley saw pupils shine a light on their musical ability, poetic performances, mime, dramatic scenes and shadow puppetry. Children stood in front of the stage to announce each of their performances and gave a special thank you to 20-21 for inspiring their creative juices and showing them how to make shadow theatre.

Here are some photos of the displays colourfully brightening up the school hall:

 

 

 

A really special thank you to all the pupils and staff at Bottesford Juniors for inviting us along to their first creative workshop showcase! What an excellent morning or talent, intrigue and a little bit of Gangnam Style! We would very much like to come along again next year, to see more of the same!

Teacher Twilight Round-Up

Wednesday 6th March saw the first Teacher Twilight at 20-21, for a few years. The session was delivered in conjunction with Laura Fox, AST and Arts Coordinator for Brumby Junior School, and with Ian Till, former DT teacher and DT assessor.

The morning opened with a quick introduction to 20-21 Visual Arts Centre, just before a presentation on the new proposed Art and Design Curriculum, delivered by Laura.

 

Laura introduced the new curriculum with enthusiasm and spoke about the three basics that were being asked of Primary Schools: Sketchbooks, Artist Research and Making. Currently, a very broad scope to deliver really exciting arts projects and classes. 

Brumby Junior School run a scheme in the Summer Terms, called Creative Workshops. Click here to see for yourself, the superb creativity taking place in the classrooms. Laura spoke about how this scheme is delivered, how excited children become and what a success the project is proving to be. For more information on Creative Workshops, get in touch and we can put you in contact with the school.

Ian spoke breifly about the new Design and Technology proposed curriculum, and how frustrating it can be that DT isn't always at the forefront of agendas, but how crucial critical and design thinking is for children. His talk was inspirational in thinking about how design and technology studies, from such an early age count towards understanding further subjects in the future.

Some of the teachers hadn't been to 20-21 before, so we hosted a quick tour of all the gallery spaces and what exhibitions to expect in the near future. The tour made use of the Self Guided Tour Pack, which has facts on the history of the building, as well as on current exhibitions. It was useful for teachers to envisage the sapce in which workshops and visits happen.

We watched the whole of Sharmanka's Gothic Kinetic exhibition and returned to the Education Room to watch demonstrations of workshops on offer that fit the themes and materials of the Sharmanka show.

Ian's workshop displayed many automata and tabletop strcutures that are workable and suitable for any classroom. It included a piece of our Moving Toys Loan Pack, that we are looking to revive for the Sharmanka show.

Hayley, our Education Officer, gave a 10 minute demonstration on how Shadow Puppetry can be used in any classroom, as a topic starter, using lots of items found around the home, schools and classrooms.

People in the room were all handed a folded piece of paper with a number on, and on request unfolded the paper to read a section of our story.



At this point in our story, a ghost had suddenly appeared at a haunted house.

The ghost was then ate our main character, before going back home to his haunted house.

 

Setting a new scene for a different part of the story: a fairground with a clown.

 

Being innovative with resources isn't hard, when realising the possibilities of recognisable objects. Children would, more than likely see things before we had even noticed them. Shadow Puppetry is an offer from our Education service that can be adapted to suit many curriculum subjects and topics. The Shadow Puppet pack can go out on loan to any school, for up to one half term. The pack can be adapted to suit your school's needs. 

The basic pack includes:

•  A tabletop shadow screen, inclusive of theatrical velvet curtains and sturdy feet.
•  An over head projector.
•  Four acetate sheets.
•  A bucket of de-barked twigs.
•  Scraps of coloured semi - transparent materials.
•  Reflective silver plastic sheet.
• And much more.

Overall, the Teachers Twilight was a great success with astounding feedback results from Infants through to KS4. Links were made, questions were answered and a more solid understanding of what we offer at 20-21, was appreciated:

"Good resources. Open ended outcomes."
"Vaired and explored different avenues for educational development."
"Really clear ideas for how to develop Art/DT through workshops in schools."
"Very good [delivery]. Shared passion."
"Interesting to see the ideas developed from the exhibition."
"Lots of ideas to take back to the classroom... Interesting and engaging... Current issues were identified... It's easy to book places."

For information on any of the topics and opportunities discussed in this blog post, get in touch with our Education Officer Hayley McPhun on 01724 297074 or hayley.mcphun@northlincs.gov.uk for an informal chat about what we can offer to suit your school/class.

Get IT savvy again!

Following on from the previous post, we have been reading up about the benefits of schools using social media, not only as a method of communication, but also as a teaching tool. The chances are, if you're reading this blog, you'll already be aware of some of the social media sites worth using in the classroom. This is a mere guide for the online spaces inspiring us, and the places we use to communicate with schools and general public. 

This excellent article by Matt Britland encourages schools to not be scared of the fast moving social media sites, but to utilise them: 

"I think it's important to embrace social media as it is the primary way that young people communicate... Much of the time we force students down the route of email. Do we do that because it is easier for us? In my experience of using Facebook groups with students they pick up communications far quicker than email."

"The great thing is that many people know how to use Facebook already, and Twitter is so straightforward it would not take long for people to learn it."

In the article, Britland makes recommendations to "follow", "like" and "pin" various sites. Our favourtie, here at Education at 20-21, is his recommendation to follow the American pinners Teacher Central. There are lots of innovative pins (visual links) to websites useful for the classroom.

"Pinning" is an action used on Pinterest, a virtual pinboard of images/sites to be inspried by or to remember on a later date. Working in 20-21 Visual Arts Centre., it is important for us to be continually inspired by exciting and innovative contemporary art. Pinterest is the perfect way to quickly capture moments of visual stimulation! Because of this, we've set up our very own Pinterest account! Follow 20-21 pins to discover what we are inspired by, the things that are making us think, and the artsits we currently have in our exhibitions!

Pinterest is an excellent way of virtually scrapbooking ideas and eventually building up an online portfolio of research, events and art projects. For help and advice on how to use Pinterest to its best potential, please contact Hayley McPhun, our Education Officer, on 01724 297074 or hayley.mcphun@northlincs.gov.uk

Get IT savvy!

You may have noticed, we've set up a links page. On it you'll find lots of lovely links to local and national websites that we find interesting for arts education and IT savvy schools.

One school we've discovered use online communications with their parents and pupils is Bottesford Junior School.

The website has some great newsletters attached and links to their own blogs which children post and upload onto.

Goxhill Primary School seem to take IT very seriously and upload films onto their podcast page. On there they have videos of taiko drumming, circus skills and latest news from the school.

Are your school on Twitter? Many schools nowadays are using twitter as a method of teaching literacy, phonics and numeracy in the classroom. If you're already tweeting, why not follow us? 20-21 have been using twitter for a few years, now, often posting images of exhibitions and curation of shows.

 One very successful classroom twitter project is Orange Class's ClassroomTweets, request to follow the IT savvy class, for their often very cute posts and status updates.

We are looking out for schools who blog about art and workshops in their schools. If you are an IT savvy school, writing posts about creative and visual arts, get in touch with us. We'd be happy to add your website to our Links page.

Exciting post!

Exciting post has arrived on Education at 20-21's desk! A long awaited parcel of gifts for schools has landed! We'll not be revealing what the gift is until we've met you all individually - otherwise it won't be a nice surpise, will it? There is one free gift for every primary, secondary and further education establishment in North Lincolnshire and we can't wait to meet you, in order to give it to you personally.

To get your free gift, just get in touch with our Education Officer, Hayley McPhun on 01724 297074 or hayley.mcphun@northlincs.gov.uk Who knows what mystery awaits?