meeting with the art coordinator

Day entry - Meeting the Art Co-ordinator 

Today I met with June, who is the the art coordinator at Russells Hall School. She explained to me that I will be working closely with her during my time on placement there, which is wonderful as she seems like a very experienced woman, having had 45 years experience in this school teaching art and assisting in creating a creative curriculum. We discussed her roles within the school in detail, including how she goes about implementing and integrating artistic approaches and creative activities for all ages, and how the school teaches art and design around subjects on rotation.

At Russells Hall school, during a term there is often a theme influenced or inspired by literature or a book. Many subjects then revolve around that theme as best they can in order to create continuity and focussed learning. This term (sept-dec) is inspired by historical books regarding the stone age and Viking periods. (hence my development of workshop ideas inspired by these topics). However, After considering how many weeks I would like to do within the school, myself and June decided that perhaps it would be more useful to start in January, in the new term, with a new topic where I can orchestrate projects for sets on children

The next terms topic is Shakespeare and a Midsummer nights dream.

I am going to be starting my placement in the new term, by spending a week creating a new entrance display/installation, around the theme of values with June, where I will be working with her and learning more about how the school uses creative approaches to learning etc.

Following this I will spend two weeks as her classroom assistant, getting to know the children (across key stages) and gaining insightful experience in the professional setting.

The next six weeks will then be spent conducting workshops, in am or pm sessions, taking 6 children per session out of class to come and create individual and group projects based on the Midsummer nights dream theme, which will all go toward one large school project, display and presentation at the end of term. 

For my final weeks in school, I will be leading full classes in art and design projects and June will be assisting me. We will be developing ideas for those sessions during the term, based on how I feel the different ages will respond to topic etc. (generally based on gaining experience with the children and facilities)

So from here, I will begin to work on Ideas, conduct research and create examples of the sort of work the children can be doing. I will then take this back in to June on Monday the 7th of December for feedback and structuring. She will let me know what materials they have available already in school and what we may need to get or arrange for the projects, how long the sessions will be per group etc.


June called me today to go over a few things from our meeting.

I will be doing the following sessions

Monday am  - 8.45 - 9.20 YR 6 then 9.45 - 12 YR5 workshop groups/TA
Tuesday pm - YR4 - 1.30 - 3.10 workshop groups/TA
Wednesday am - 8.45 - 9.20 YR6  then  9.45 - 12 YR3
Thursday am - 8.45 - 12 - YR3

This way I will take 6 children per session/24 children per week rotating over 6 weeks. This should enable me to gain insight into the age group I feel most comfortable with. The children also will be chosen specifically from a range of abilities in order for me to take note of how creative approaches may enable children to assist the learning of their peers etc.