Category Archives: Schools

Education, Making, Schools, Young folk

Graduating with Full Honours

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As part of Welbeck School’s Children’s University project we were asked to give some aspiring students the experience of woodwork.

No one imagined that the wood in question would be enormous, raw trunks of willow, birch and oak tree, with bark, twigs & leaves still attached. Undaunted our charges took to splitting, chopping, drilling, shaving, smoothing and shaping by hand, with tools older than all of our combined ages.

After a few afternoons these gorgeous, tactile objects emerged, and those brave enough tested the strength and geometry of the joints in the only way that counts. It was so good to see parents, teachers and the other children gather around to marvel.

It’s possible that once these beautiful stools make it home, to be treasured, the glowing, burnished surfaces will be painted fluorescent orange, green with yellow spots, but that is entirely as it should be!

Education, Film, Schools, Young folk

Weaving The World

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Wishing everyone a hopeful January 1st, and a year that might begin with “a happy sound… Love!”

Remembering back, 6 years ago working with amazing young people, classes 1, 2 and 4 at Greenfields Community School, working together to weave a whole world. 80 triangles sawed & stuck & woven into a geodesic wonder. Four all too short afternoons spent making & thinking about this beautiful Earth and dreaming up new ways we can grow into the people ready to love it and each other.

Of course most of these young folks already knew how to do this without thinking at all… And we were schooled far more than they!

Education, Film, Schools, Young folk

Going back to our roots!

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It’s not made from a tree… although it is about a tree!

As part of Year 5 & 6 pupils at Welbeck Primary School in Nottingham, got a taste of what it might be like to apply to & learn on a university degree. Pupils studied engineering, sport science, nutrition, computer science and over 5 afternoons did a crash-course five taster in film and animation.

Starting with the idea of making a talking tree, the students invented this little tale of the passage of the seasons, turning their hands to set making, character design, sound recording, scripting, editing, and tried out all sorts of stop-motion techniques, including using plasticine models, multi-plane, shadows, and drawing.

Amazing work!

We’ve a bit of history at this school, for a small sampling see here.

 

Education, Making, Schools

Experiencing work

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Monday morning didn’t feel quite right somehow.
Last week we spent a wonderful 5 days in the company of Haydn who chose to do his work experience with us. So engaged and commited was he, that we almost wonder what we’ll do without him.

During the week, he worked so hard, and all over the place – learning that work doesn’t have to happen under strip lights, that it can include laughter and friends, and sometimes that it’s difficult to tell where work ends and play begins. We’re both so glad he’s taken that away with him (along with a few scrapes!)

At the end of Friday we sat down to try to cram a list of all that he’d done into a tiny box, on his school paperwork – he mused that it’d be easier to say what he hadn’t done… he gently supported others to make in day centres, schools & childrens homes, and he found time to make for himself, visited a saw mill, filmed, photographed, animated, hefted, stickered, carved, whittled, sawed, chopped. Time to go back to school for a rest!

All, Education, Gardens, Schools, Young folk

Growing pride

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The young folks at Newtons Walk School worked hard this summer; designing, digging, sawing, hammering, fixing, building.

From a jungle of a school garden, has grown a circle of seating, a hide-away den, good friendship, teamwork, new skills, trust and pride. We’re certainly proud of them all for what they’ve done, and look forward to their ideas for what’s to come.