Creative collaboration celebrates primary school partnership scheme

The Art Department’s collaboration with local primary schools drew to a close with a special event at the Art Faculty last week.  

We were delighted to welcome two classes from Mount Pleasant Primary School in Shrewsbury, who took part in a range of hands-on workshops as part of our Partnership and Community Engagement (PCE) programme, and enjoyed seeing their collaborative artwork, Flight Wings, proudly exhibited in our gallery.  

Each term our 19 Lower Sixth art ambassadors have planned and delivered a series of workshops for Mount Pleasant and Greenfields Primary School pupils. Rooted in the taught curriculum of both schools - covering Maths, Technology, and Art - our ambassadors developed skills in art processes connected to these subjects. They then shared this knowledge with their PCE peers by leading weekly teaching sessions at their respective schools. 

Students used frottage and sgraffito on upcycled book pages to make a series of bird feathers. They then worked as teams to combine these into giant wings and use reflection and rotation to Geli print from real feathers, in addition to drawing inspiration from our current A Level art and photography exhibition.  It has been terrific to see the relationships between the different groups of youngsters grow, and in particular to see how our own art ambassadors have flourished with the responsibility of leading the learning of others, collaboratively. 

All our art ambassadors have thrived in this role, and several have shown particular leadership and verve in planning and will be commended with certificates of acknowledgement shortly. Our purpose was to make the PCE rooted in the curriculum of all our schools, and challenge our ambassadors to extend their interpersonal, communication and leadership skills, whilst creating a significant learning contribution to all. 

The smiles from all involved is a testament to our success, as - I hope you will agree - are the terrific prints and giant wings the pupils made. Feedback from the schools and pupils included: 

“An absolutely amazing experience for our pupils - thank you so much.”- Mount Pleasant teacher. 

 “Thank you so much for this afternoon! The children really enjoyed it and the teachers loved that it was linked to their art!  We have loved the project and look forward to more!” - Greenfields teacher. 

“Thanks again for all your hard work in making it all happen.  The children were absolutely buzzing about it!” - Mount Pleasant headteacher. 

Anna Moszynska

Head of Art