Oh what a week I had last week! Five days of hard work and eye-opening talent by some brilliant children and supported by fantastic teachers – open, receptive and warm – all of whom completely restored my faith in why I visit schools and what the benefits of art can be.
Radburn School is a complex school, with children from a mixture of backgrounds and with a variety of needs. This presents a particular challenge to the teachers. Often getting children engaged, especially boys, is tough. But I’m particularly interested in reaching out to those who seem to be slipping through the net.
Each class had different projects. The early years and year one looked at dragons and dinosaurs with me. Year two illustrated the Russian folk tale Baba-Yaga, while Year three did some illustrations based on stories of pirates that linked to The Fighting Temeraire by Turner. Year four illustrated to music and Year five produced “story scrolls” of Beowulf (these are long narrative sequences produced collaboratively on lining paper, like a sort a “Bayeux Tapestry”). Year six illustrated The Firebird. On the last day the two top classes worked together on a large mural combining four famous paintings from the National Gallery.
The year four session was especially gratifying, with one autistic boy sitting focussed for an hour and forty minutes listening to stories and music and watching me paint. The whole class seemed mesmerised by the powerful effect of Sibelius’ “Swan on Tuonela” and Bax’s “Tintagel”. This was all adapted from the annual Children’s Concert I give in Hatfield, using a CD instead of a real orchestra. But the music worked it’s magic and the children did some fabulous art, especially for Dukas’ Sorcerer’s Apprentice.
I was also really pleased with how the Beowulf scrolls turned out, with children collaborating and sharing and producing phenomenal art, which will be an ideal spur to future creative writing and even storytelling verbally, which I had demonstrated during the session.
The other illustration workshops also produced some exception results. One year six girl produced an incredibly mature and sophisticated “Grey Wolf” for The Firebird, and the year two Baba Yaga pictures were full of humour and detail.
A variety of materials were used and the children really responded well to being challenged with unusual and new things – like emulsion paints for the mural, and inks for illustrating.
The invitation to work in the school came on the back of a conference in “creativity in the classroom”, in January. This was attended by over a hundred teachers from local schools and I was asked to be the key note speaker. It felt rather intimidating at the time, but several schools have subsequently invited me in to practise what I preached that day.
Of course, much of the effect is simply due to having a new face come in to the school. But I also believe very strongly in the power of oral storytelling, of art, both demonstrated and practised, and of music in a specific context. I also believe that illustration as art is not often fully exploited in classrooms and it is essential to thinking about stories and characters and is such a useful aid to literacy, especially amongst children who find that subject hard. To hear that unlikely children were actively asking (bewildered)parents for sketch books as birthday presents speaks volumes!
