Art Club

At Maiden Erlegh, my SE1 placement school I run an art club on Tuesdays after school from 4 to 5pm.

Dynamics

It is certainly a different dynamic to teaching for a number of reasons.

- Initiative - It is with a group of year sevens who elect themselves to take part. Therefore students are more engaged in art making.

- Expectations - Despite being more engaged, they are less focussed, this isn't necessarily a bad thing as there are no expectations, but there is less focus on the creation of artworks and more on chatting with friends.

- Purpose - The purpose is to create a space where children feel safe, comfortable and creative.

- Format - Students do not work in sketchbooks or on A2 sheets and therefore create individual pieces each week.

- Parental expectation- I am somewhat more aware of the students parents/ guardians in this dynamic and I encourage students to take work home with them more or to photograph it on their phones.

- Relevance - I try each week to find some way to apply/ take inspiration from current events to create lesson ideas.

- Planning - In a normal lesson, I try to follow a rough structure of: (1 hour:) 10 minute introduction/ Context - 20 minute activity one - 5 minute refocus - 20 minute activity two - 5 minute to pack away.

Week 1:

This was my first week helping out, the students continued with a project they had started the week before making 'dream-catchers'. I was able to help some students, by creating marble and wire charms, this made a difference to the students and helped to build rapport.

It was also a challenge of problem solving to find a way to make the marble hangable.

Photo:

Week 2

This was my second week helping out and last week where I would not be leading these sessions.

My Colleague prepared a presentation on Dios de los Muertos, the Mexican day of the dead festival. I helped to present this and reminded students that this is not a celebration of death but of life and connecting with loved relatives that have passed. Students used this time to draw observational studies of skulls and day of the dead themed items.

Week 3:

This week was the first week where I would plan and deliver the activity. I was only told I needed to select the activity on the day, but I was happy to be involved and decided to make a lesson around Halloween, which was the following day.

My coworker had suggested I just gave out pieces of paper and asked them to practice mark making, but I wanted to make the activity more engaging.

For the activity, I decided on creating 'monsters' as a group, each element at a time (head, upper torso, lower torso, legs, feet) folding the paper to keep it hidden from the next person to draw. This ended up being a very fun task and the students enjoyed engaging with it thoroughly. I played halloween songs while they worked, paused the music to grab their attention (and while doing various activities to swap with a partner) and did a group reveal/ catwalk of the monsters one at a time nearer the end of the lesson. Students would select a monster they liked the look of and colour it in. It was a great exercise, as more gifted students would be able to help add value to other students drawings anonymously and the students had a lot of fun.

Photos:

Week 4:

This week I led the session completely on my own. It is certainly a change as as a Student teacher, I am always accompanied by another teacher in the room.

I decided on the task again, and designed this activity to make paper cuttings of poppies. i introduced by talking a bit about remembrance day and then did the demonstration.

The activity involved folding red coloured paper, cutting into it and unfolding these flower patterns. Then doing the same again with a piece of black paper 1/4 the size for the centre. These were then stuck down onto a piece of white paper and decorated with a stem, leaves, grass and something to do with remembrance day.

This is the first time I have taught art club where every student took their work away with them to show their parents/carers. I feel this is a satisfactory result for the activity and I may continue this in another class/year/school in the future.

The students enjoyed the element of folding the paper and expressed interest in creating origami in the next week's art club (Butterflies and horses). As not every week will be celebrating an important occasion its good to discuss with students about what they might expect/appreciate in a prepared activity.

I had the two sixth formers helping me out (for their community service) and I delegated to them to prepare these materials to the right size and keep some less focussed students on task and from distracting others.

Photos:

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