Reepham High School

This was a collaborative project with Reepham High School involving selected pupils from Year 6 classes from surrounding feeder schools working with selected Year 7 pupils already at the High School. The theme for this one-off one-day workshop was Trees and Moons, based on initial study of tree-related and strongly mythological objects from Papua New Guinea. It was also a primary aim to emphasise the importance of meeting different people, working together in teams, and gelling as a whole group with a common purpose. 

An important element was working outside, despite bitterly cold winter weather conditions. The children were instructed in observational exercises looking at trees in the school grounds, working on short exercises at different levels of scale. This was followed by an inspirational 'dance' around the extraordinary white observatary, which resembled a moon and directed our thoughts towards winter skies and cosmology. Back in the warm art room, pupils developed tree images using ink and by blowing through straws. They also made moons from white drink cartons, adding thoughts about the day as messages inserted into craters.