Working towards Silver Artsmark! - September 2022

As an Academy we are nearly a year in of working towards ‘Gold Artsmark’ which is developing well. Alongside this we have been developing our curriculum which has given all staff the opportunity to look at the curriculum and develop it to fit our Academy curriculum intent.  

As Art subject leader, I have looked at the key skills for Art and adapted a document that shows the progression in skills and knowledge across the Academy. This is in the process of being implemented.  Each class or year group have their own chosen Artist and Composer to research and use in class led worships. We have chosen our new Art Ambassadors for this current year and the Arty Crafty Corner will be up and running at lunchtimes in Term 2.  

Progress during the academic year 2018 -19

Terms 3 and 4:

Local Artist, Mark Fisher, led our staff in CPD focussing on drawing techniques. The following week, staff taught their children the processes they had learnt through drawing dragons to celebrate St. Georges Day.   

We were contacted by Emma Harding, who is a local ceramic artist. She offered us the amazing opportunity of being part of ‘A town explores a Book’, with the book being Robinson Crusoe.  Many classes read some of the text from the book and discussed homelessness and related this back to our own community.  Many of the children then had the chance to make a tile and paint a design on it, they were then fired and made into a shelter.  This shelter was exhibited in Gensing Gardens and, once the exhibition was finished, the shelter was erected on our nature trail for the children to play in.  

Terms 5 and 6 was a busy time but especially in the Arts in our Academy:  

Year 3 continued to be the year group who attended the Jerwood Gallery (now Hastings Contemporary). The children worked alongside Ed Boxall, a local illustrator and story writer.   The children exhibited their work in the Gallery in June, where again families were able to attend and view their children’s work. We look forward to working with the project, ‘The Pearls of the Sea’ starting this Autumn 2019.  

We were very lucky to have Radiator Arts (Peter Quinnell and Jane Bruce) join us for a CPD meeting in conjunction with The St Leonards Festival. They returned to help us finish making sea creatures for the festival in school workshops.  It was great to see new parents and children attending the ‘pop up’ afterschool clubs and there was such a great vibe and buzz amongst us all! The festival was attended by a very moving contingent of parents, children and staff, who all rallied to offer support on a very warm Saturday afternoon. 

Last Year 4 classes worked with a composer, Felicity Laurence from the Hastings community of Sanctuary.  The children composed a song about Refugees and performed it in front of their parents in July. On the same day, but in the evening, the Year 5 (our current Year 6) children performed at the White Rock in the Big Sing Competition – winning best performance!

All year groups also had the chance to visit Zoom Arts, (just off Warrior Square Railway) to work along Emma Harding again, this time to help grout small mosaic tiles in the sign that they had the chance to design.   The sign is now displayed outside the railway station for all to see and is a great reminder of community spirit, with everyone from St Leonards having the opportunity to take part.   

Things to look forward to:  

In Term 2 we will be working alongside the community of St Leonards again when we take part in the Frost Fair and parade on Saturday 30th November.  This will be followed up with the local storyteller Kevin Graal coming in to share his amazing winter stories.    

On 9th December there will be an Enterprise Christmas Fair too!

Ms D Borthwick