I have a very small rural primary school as my first school to start their own Big Build. They are very ambitious and completely embracing the ethos of more creativity and arts activities within their school. The children they have chosen as ‘Art Leaders’ are not the oldest in the school, this to make the most of their experience in taking part in this project. Their experiences will be required next year when the school repeats this June of creativity and their skill and knowledge called on again to help deliver the event.
This year the European elections we have just had, has had a big impact on my schools’ approach! The village hall is usually used as the polling station, but this year it is under repair. The solution was to close a near by school for the day to use that as the polling station. So my school has invited this homeless school over for the whole day to co-create a Woodland Scene inspired by The Lost Words book by Robert Macfarlane.
Two complete schools in one, making a cardboard installation to go in the communal School Yurt over one day of total creative output and team work.
So we devised a plan. The ‘Art Leaders’ (a class of 25) made a large model of the Yurt with the woodland display inside. This would then be shown to the rest of the school and the visiting school, showing what the idea was and what we are trying to achieve.
The idea then to create a scene or a landscape with trees, hills, water fall with rocks and a stream. All in a day with two schools. When the school returns after half term they will continue to populate the scene with flowers, animals and other details. This phase two being what they describe as ‘art week’ activity.
Cardboard has been collected by everyone far and wide and the school is inundated or awash with it. Enthusiasm and ambition very high.
