By Mike Wheeler, Headteacher at Pamphill First School
Over the past few months, it has been great to engage with the Glow Badbury Project and, now that the children have enjoyed a visit to Badbury Rings with local experts and taken part in workshops with the artists, the children and their families are buzzing for the event in the Autumn.
Sarah has made it so easy for us to join in and has worked around what is a very busy school calendar to ensure the children get maximum benefit – including sorting transport out to the Rings for our visit there which was greatly appreciated. Sarah also led our KS1 class shield making workshop and was so wonderfully personable with the children, that she had them in the palm of her hand all day.
All of the artist workshops have provided a real wow factor. The children have absolutely thrived under the guidance of the artists while getting to create some quite large-scale projects. They certainly enjoyed the ‘big build’ nature of the Celtic helmets and shields, especially as the end products were so effective. Our KS2 class (Stags) created the Celtic Helmets and were absolutely buzzing to tell me about their experience, including the gluey mess. Their teacher said:
“The children were all very engaged and loved building the structures and fitting them together with the tape. Most enjoyed getting sticky when gluing the paper strips to finish, and those who did not enjoy the feeling on their fingers persevered well with adult support. It was a great experience for them. The artist, Holly, leading the session explained each step clearly and succinctly so the children could follow her instructions easily.”
Our Owls class’ (EYFS) experience with Heidi was also just as valuable, the class teacher on the day – Mrs Lloyd – was also in her element. Having been in and out throughout the day, it’s hard to say who enjoyed it more out of the staff and the children!
“What a fantastic day Owls Reception class had when Heidi from GLOW Badbury came in for the day to run an art workshop. We started the day with a meditative drawing activity. The children focussed on their breathing, and listened to music, whilst they explored different pens and pencils on paper. The children found this very calming, and it set a great tone for the day… Following this Heidi talked to the class about the Beech trees that line the Badbury Rings road, they found this really interesting especially that the trees were so old. Heidi then showed them what they would be making in the workshop. It was a large textured woven flag, made up of lots of weaving and hanging details.
The class then made a leaf talisman from clay to hang from the flag. They used clay tools to shape the leaf and then threaded ribbon through it with beads so it could hang. The children really enjoyed this, and it was great they produced a finished piece. Next the class made weaving looms out of cardboard. This required some adult help for the measuring part. It was a great opportunity for the children to practice using rulers to join straight lines and to practice their cutting skills with scissors. The children used a white ribbon for the weaving on the loom. It was quite tricky to follow the in and out pattern, but the children tried very hard and really enjoyed giving it a go. They loved seeing the big flag that their pieces were going to be part of.
Owls had a wonderful day with Heidi, it was great to throw ourselves into creativity for the whole day , it was certainly one Owls class will remember!”
We are all very much looking forward to coming to see everything on display at the festival which will provide a brilliant finish to this creative community project – it has added some wonderful ‘colour’ and breadth to our Art and DT curriculums for this year. Thank you so much for getting us involved!
Mike Wheeler, Headteacher, Pamphill First School
Proud to be part of Initio Learning Trust