25/02/2010 by James.

I was working with Churchfields Infant School in Redbridge, NE London, on Monday and Tuesday this week, as the first of 5 two-day blocks of sessions there on a Creative Partnerships project.

The focus on the project is to allow the children’s voices to be heard through a creative and child-led way of working, and to make the most that the local outdoor environment has to offer.

I am working with Reception and Year 2 children and their teaching staff on this project, and this week made books with the year 2 children, to record their experiences of the project using  drawing/painting/rubbings and found objects.

With the staff I led an Inset session exploring creativity and child-led learning, and a hands-on session similar to the reception children’s; using clay as a base for marks, shapes, patterns and constructions, from materials found around the school grounds.

Next month we’re going to be walking up into Epping Forest to explore, play and create. We’ve asked the children what they think we should do in the Forest, and the teaching staff are going to keep me updated with what happens between now and then, so that the ‘brief’ that we give the children can be as responsive as possible to their continuing individual learning journeys.

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12/02/2010 by James.

Here are a few photos from a project that I ran this week at Warneford Secondary School in Highworth.

I talked to the whole year 9 group in an assembly about the role of art in exploring identity, and in defining and sharing a sense of your own identity with others. Then I worked with 15 of the young people to develop ideas for artworks which gathered together images, shapes and ideas from their own lives, like a kind of creative identity puzzle.

Their teachers and I wanted to give them a chance to come up with their own ideas around who they are and what they are passionate about - to experience how art can support you to be in control of your image and identity, be more reflective on who you are as a person and then start to think about what you might like to achieve in the future.

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10/02/2010 by James.

Please share the following information with any 14 to 19 yr olds you know of in the Stonehenge/Salisbury/surrounding areas, who may be interested in this exciting opportunity to advise English Heritage on the development of the new Visitor Centre and learning/outreach programmes.

Thank you!

STONEHENGE YOUNG PEOPLE’S PANEL

WHAT?

English Heritage at Stonehenge needs the options of young people to decide how to make their new Visitor Centre an interesting and fun place to visit in the future.

WHO?

Young people from 14-19 years old, who are interested in design, archaeology, or the environment, in sharing their opinions and having something different on their CV.

HOW?

We want to hold on Open Meeting, and four Young People’s Panel sessions, based at Salisbury Museum, with visits to Stonehenge and other local venues.

Open Meeting:

The open meeting will give you a chance to see artists’ impressions of the new Visitor Centre, handle artefacts, explore the Museum and give ideas on what needs to happen next. If you decide to become part of the panel you can sign up for that here too.

Panel Sessions:

At each session there will be a different theme and content – such as meeting the architects, designing interactive exhibits, and exploring how we can make facilities more environmentally sustainable.

The Young People’s Panel is free. Local transport costs will be paid and refreshments will be provided for all of the four panel sessions.

WHEN?

Open Meeting:

Saturday 13^th February at Salisbury & South Wiltshire Museum, Cathedral Close, Salisbury, 10.30am to 12.30pm (just turn up, no need to book).

Panel Sessions:

Saturday 27^th February, 20^th March, 17^th April, 8^th May at Salisbury & South Wiltshire Museum, 10.15am to 12.45pm (sign up for your place at the Open Meeting).

It is hoped that the panel sessions will continue after this initial project.

For more information please contact James Aldridge:

Email: info@creative-ecology.co.uk Telephone: 07931 407 186

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26/01/2010 by James.

I was up in Lancaster last week, running my last 3 days of the creative outdoor learning project with the Nursery children (2 to 3 yr olds).The aim of the sessions was to give the pre-school staff a taste of creative ways that children can be supported to explore their local outdoor environment.

In the longer term, this kind of creative approach can enable staff and artist to work together, to begin to identify and follow individual childrens’ learning pathways, and better provide for their needs. In this case I was only working with the group for 3 days, so it was to be used of a starting point, for further creative and child-initiated work.

I concentrated on devising sessions that linked inside and out, and made the most of natural and recycled open-ended materials.

I’m keen to avoid re-inforcing the idea in schools and pre-schools of using one way of working indoors and one out, of the door being a barrier to taking drawing outside, or bringing mud and leaves in. Otherwise I think there’s a danger that  outdoor-learning or environmental art projects can lead to the perception of ‘nature’ as being something that you keep in a kind of bubble and visit occasionally, whilst your everyday life carries on as usual.

Over the three days I offered different materials and different ways of exploring places and materials to the children, with each day loosely labeled as Mark-making/Sensory Exploration, Small Scale Construction/Clay Work, and Large-Scale Construction/Role Play.

As usual the children didn’t necessarily use the resources in ways that fitted the labels or our expectations, and that was fine. The grouping and labeling of resources was a starting point, and the ability to work across different areas enables children at different stages of development, or with different interests, to experiment, make connections and learn.

The photos added here are from the last day, when different options were combined and laid out in the forest area, and mark-making and construction blurred into role play.

The first day involved getting very messy with a bucket of liquid clay, chalk, mud and graphite sticks as we explored mark-making in the forest area. The second involved collecting ‘treasures’ from the local area chosen by the children, and then exploring them with clay. So I didn’t get chance to take any photos from the first two sessions due to being pretty much covered in mud and clay.

So to sum up, great fun, very messy, and as usual very inspiring, to be exploring materials and environments alongside the senses and imaginations of young children.

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29/10/2009 by James.

To follow on from the professional development session that I led at a Salisbury Nursery last week on Creative Learning in Early Years Education, I ran a hands on session for the staff and children yesterday.

We explored woodland materials using our senses and magnifying glasses, and discovered patterns, shapes, textures and stories by combining them with clay.

The responses from the group of 3 to 5 year olds was varied, with individual children touching, pressing and squeezing the clay, making cars, snowmen or eggs, or taking their clay away from the table to cook in an imaginary oven.

The idea of ‘intelligent materials’ is that they are open ended. They aren’t toys, they don’t encourage a particular reaction or response, they facilitate the children in exploring their own senses and ideas. It linked nicely with last week’s inset session where we discussed ways of supporting children to lead their own learning, through the use of appropriate materials, language and documentation.

I’m in the process of confirming permission to share the images of the children, so in the meantime, I’ve added these no-face pics.

For more information on creative learning in Early Years settings, have a look at these websites…      www.5×5x5creativity.org.uk     www.sightlines-initiative.com

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14/10/2009 by James.

I’ve mentioned this briefly on my twitter page (jamesaldridge4), but here’s some links to info and images released on the new visitor centre for Stonehenge.

New Stonehenge Visitor Centre - Architects’ Vision - http://miniurl.org/tyW

BBC: Proposals for a new £25m visitor centre at Stonehenge have been unveiled by English Heritage http://miniurl.org/09c

and a photo of what Stonehenge should look like after the road that cuts across the avenue has been scraped off and grassed over…

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14/10/2009 by James.

Yesterday myself and Laura, the education officer from Salisbury Museum, ran the last of these creative family learning sessions at Kiwi School.

As you might know by now, we have been exploring the Stonehenge landscape and its ancient and military history and using mark-making to document and reflect on our experiences.

On this last session, Laura talked to the families about the beaker pots that are sometimes found in the barrows linked with Stonehenge, and we explored outside to find our own tools to make marks into clay.

We also got messy with acrylic paints, exploring the sensory qualities of the paint, mixing colour, and drawing on the last few sessions to create work inspired by Stonehenge and its surroundings.

Its been a great project to run with the Museum, and brilliant to see so many of the mums (as well as their children) get fired up by experimenting freely with creative materials, and learning about this ancient site almost on their doorstep.

In January we’ll be putting up an exhibition at the Museum, sharing images and artwork from across the project, showing how the creative activities, the artefacts provided by the museum and the National Trust, and the visits to the landscape itself, have all come together to support each family to gain something different from the project and its free, responsive approach.

Keep an eye on the museum website for more information on the exhibition, due to run from January to March 2010…. www.salisburymuseum.org.uk

 ( sunset through the stones by Daisy )

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07/10/2009 by James.

Okay so not quite amongst, more walking around the edges, but in terms of the families’ interest in and engagement with the monument they were really ‘in there’.

It was the first time that most of the children and a lot of their parents had been to Stonehenge, despite living only a few miles away. The project was set up to give children from army families the chance to explore this local landscape, and for their parents (in this case mainly mums) to be able to share an experience with their children that is fun, and educational in an informal sense.

Some of the families don’t have their own transport and several have partners posted abroad, so living on Bulford Camp, although only a few miles away can be fairly restrictive in terms of exploring the local landscape - hence the need for the project.

We were given a tour by the National Trust team, shared ideas about what the monument was for and the role that the different parts played, and the children tried on helmets from WW2, linking with the postcards of Stonehenge during the wars that Laura from Salisbury Museum shared with us last week.

Next week its the last session back at school, so more making and exploring to come…. probably something messy and tactile, reflecting on our experiences at Stonehenge and   the interests expressed by the group.

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30/09/2009 by James.

Yesterday we were back in school, with the children and their parents making collages, either on paper or recycled polythene. We were discussing our experiences at Stonehenge last week, looking at a plan and aerial photos of the area, and starting to imagine what the whole landscape might look like from the air.

The families used marker pens, wool, string and found objects to define boundaries, draw paths, and map out the circular barrows.

Laura (Salis Museum’s Ed Officer, with whom I’m running the sessions), had found some postcards of Stonehenge from the two world wars, written by soldiers based at Bulford Camp, just like these children’s parents, with messages to their own wives and children.

Next week we are all back on the minibus - heading back to Stonehenge to explore the stones themselves…

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23/09/2009 by James.

Yesterday was the second of five Making Tracks project sessions. We went in a minibus from Kiwi School on Bulford Camp to the Stonehenge site and met the National Trust Stonehenge Landscape team, who told the group about the landscape, its history and different features.

The children explored, drew and handled examples of the kind of objects found in and around the barrows. We’re going back to Stonehenge on the fourth session to get in and spend some time around the stones, and do some more mark-making in response to the monument itself.

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