Arts Projects in Profile

Fane Street, Donegall Road & Botanic Primary Schools – Parents Workshops to Inspire

Thursday, May 13th, 2010

Creative Paths Project – Education/Training

Fane Street, Donegall Road & Botanic Primary Schools, The Village – South Belfast
Project: Parents Workshops to Inspire
Artist: Anu Sundaralingam
Participants: Adults x30, 4 teachers, 3 schools
20 hours, 6 weeks

This project designed to enthuse and inspire parents and give them new skills that they could bring back to their After Schools Clubs, also proved good for building links between the teachers and parents from 3 local primary schools. By working collaboratively it served to enhance community relations too.

Teachers and parents working alongside artist Anu Sundaralingam, and a tutor from the Chinese Welfare Association, created a piece of felt art based on a Chinese theme.

The group met over a number of weeks rotating the venue to each participating school. Working collaboratively they produced six wall hangings, two for each school. The outcomes for teachers and parents were very strong. They included new found knowledge and confidence, which could be transferred to their teaching and learning environments. It fostered good team work and a sense of pride, and has given them the enthusiasm to follow up the training with creative felt-making projects with children. Ideas will no doubt be developed and integrated into their Extended Schools Programme to give arts activities a new lease of life.

Fane Street Felt

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Cranmore Integrated Primary School – Staff Skills in Art

Thursday, May 13th, 2010

Creative Paths Project – Education

Cranmore Integrated Primary School, Finaghy Road North South Belfast
Project: Staff Skills Training in Art
Artist: Caroline Jeffrey
Age group: 8-10
Participants: x 60 pupils, 2 teachers
30 hours, over 12 weeks

This project was conceived with the goal of providing fun and engaging lessons for the pupils in a creative and stimulating environment, at the same time as developing the knowledge and skills of their teachers. The aim was to make more cross curricular links and promote connected learning experiences for the pupils, linking with the revised NI Primary Curriculum.

The art mediums and techniques teachers wanted to explore were clay, ceramics, fabric and printing. In P5 the focus was clay, and P6 worked with fabric using resist techniques to produce batik designs, wool to make felt, and screen printing. Papier mache and puppet making were also mastered!

Planning between the artist, Caroline Jeffrey and the teachers, was an integral part of the project to make optimum use of classroom time. The teachers preparation and participation in each lesson alongside Caroline meant that by the end of the project they both felt enthusiastic and confident that they could repeat similar processes and projects with their pupils in future, without the artist.

“I have learnt so many new skills and feel confident to implement them in a school setting. I have a better understanding of how simple materials can be used to create fabulous pieces e.g. newspaper and masking tape for mask making. I feel more confident about allowing the children greater freedom with their thoughts and ideas, and have great ideas for future art projects now!

“Artist, Caroline has a great way of always allowing the children to take the lead and follow their own ideas….within reason!! This meant they thoroughly enjoyed the project and were completely immersed in the creative process at all stages, the result was they developed their skills and confidence too”.
Teacher, Grainne Dobbin

The legacy of the project is that the school has additional art resources for the future, two members of staff received excellent training in a practical classroom environment. Now this can be disseminated to other colleagues so that pupils throughout the school will benefit.

“I think there is incredible potential for this kind of ‘in situ’ teacher training that has a strong element of professional development that has a real far reaching impact on the pupils in years to come”.
Caroline Jeffrey Artist

Clearly, both teachers and pupils gained a lot from the sessions, and the finished art pieces were of a high standard.

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Holy Child Nursery School – Art for All Seasons

Thursday, February 4th, 2010

Creative Paths Project – Early Years

Holy Child Nursery School, Andersonstown, West Belfast
Project: Art for all Seasons
Artist: Laureen Magill
Age Group: 3-4
Participants: x 52 children
30 hours, over 15 weeks

This ‘Art for all Seasons’ project sprang from a long held desire to ‘brighten up’ the front of the nursery school with artwork created by the children, that would stimulate interest and discussion throughout the year between parents and children. Using the theme of the Seasons gave the children an opportunity to engage with the natural world in a creative way.

“We were extremely fortunate through Creative Paths to be matched with artist Laureen Magill. She was an inspiration, full of ideas and enthusiasm which in turn rubbed off on our pupils who loved getting involved in sticking, painting, decorating, and creating each Thursday morning.

Autumn saw the children collect leaves and twigs outdoors in the school grounds which they used to take rubbings from, and make drawings which were laminated to produce a colourful group piece of artwork for the wall outside. They had great fun and were very proud of their finished work!

Over the Winter the artwork outside really grabbed both children and parents’ imagination. Being greeted by a full size 3D reindeer sculpture made from recycled plastic bottles certainly fuelled lots of interaction and discussion.

Springtime brought with it a full farmyard of animals outside the front entrance of the nursery school including pigs, goats and sheep, all made by the children with Laureen using recycled scrap materials.

The project certainly had the desired effect. It was a great source of conversation in the morning and afternoon as parents frequently stopped to look, as their children pointed out which bits were theirs how they were made. This is a great example of scrap materials used to inspire future artists, architects, engineers, and animals lovers!
Geraldine McCleneghan, Principal

“By actually working in 3D the children built their skills and grasped the concept more readily. All the staff that worked alongside me in the nursery acquired new skills and greater confidence. They learned how to turn all the free scrap materials from Play Resource into something…giving it a new lease of life. Like a pig made from an old trolley! The staff all felt they could carry on working in this way even without me there. The nursery is a very relaxed, colourful, inspiring learning environment. They quickly make curriculum links from their activities. Like how their visit to a farm translated into our Spring artwork theme!”
Laureen Magill, Artist