Arts Week October 2021

Post 9 - Arts Week

Can the Arts change the world? Have the Arts changed your world? These were our enquiry questions that we wanted the children to explore during Dolphin’s Arts Week.

The Arts departments would argue that Britain is a giant in the world when it comes to the Arts, but what would our children think?

The ordinary curriculum was thrown away and all the children from Nursery to Year 8 enjoyed a variety of experiences; led by subject teachers and external visitors.

To give you a flavour of the week: Year 4 and Year 5 created extraordinary puppets out of found objects in the copse and then interacted with their environment. Dan Kitchener, the highly respected street artist, squeezed in a visit for Years 7 & 8 and did a magnificent demonstration in the school playground. All the children from Year 3- Year 8 composed exciting songs with the musician, Al ? and then recorded them. Jo visited nearly every child in the school to run a workshop on Concrete poetry, and Judy stepped outside her comfort zone to run a clowning workshop with Nursery!

Particularly impressive was the willingness of other departments to explore Arts week through their subjects. The Science department worked hard to bring in the Arts to every lesson they taught; this ranged from making rainbow coloured density columns to creating beautiful diagrams of the body inspired by the artist, Archimboldi. Intricate curves of pur-suit - geometric patterns were designed and coloured in Maths.

Three theatre companies visited to perform; NIE travelled down from Cambridge with their show Hamlet in a Suitcase, Puppetellers brought the much loved traditional story The Little Red Hen and Hand Made Theatre showed us how to operate puppets. Big hint: it’s all in the breath!

It was a real luxury having the time and space to explore the Arts in depth. one of the highlights for years 7 & 8 was the set design day, led by artist Susannah Lovegrove. Having read Roald Dahl’s rather macabre short story, The Landlady, the previous week in English, they were set the task of creating life-sized sets for each room of the landlady’s house in the style of Punchdrunk Theatre Company. They could only use the following items: cardboard boxes, paper, black sharpie pens, white sheets, string and tape. The collaboration, creativity and ever increasing confidence throughout the day was quite simply magnificent to observe. Once they had built their sets, they added lighting, soundscapes and actors, then they performed for Adam and a group of interested passerbys!

The whole week ended with a celebratory exhibition of the children’s work, to which parents were invited, at a safe physical distance.

Recently we have all reflected on Arts Week and below are some of our children’s thoughts about the opening enquiry questions…

• They changed my world in a way I never felt before.
• They can make people happy. They can heal people. They can relax and help people.
• The Arts change the world by making it happier, and making us happier
• I could really express myself and I believe that Arts Week will open up everyone’s world
• The Arts can influence thinking, they can make people happy and they can create awareness of worldwide issues (ie: posters, songs, plays)
• The Arts have really opened up new worlds and I think it can really do the same to your world
• Changing the way humans think mentally. Arts week made me enjoy school more because you can be engaged & inspired
• It maybe can change the world under the right circumstances and it already has during the Renaissance period
• The Arts can change the world and make it a more peaceful place & colourful place
• They have changed my world because it has unlocked creative ideas in my head
• The Arts have changed me to become more engaged
• The Arts is such a big boost to our mental health and let me feel free and it’s an amazing outlet for my feelings
• They help me relieve stress & allow me to connect with people all over the world
• I think the Arts have changed lots of people’s lives. Giving people jobs, enjoyment, a community
• The Arts can often sway opinions or bring up and display issues in new ways
• It was one of the most memorable times in school ever
• I would like the whole of October to be Arts Week

So the answer to the opening questions was a resounding YES from Dolphin students during Arts Week.

Thank you to everyone who contributed, whether that was running workshops, organising school meals in alternative venues, bringing the Arts into your own lessons, cleaning up after workshops, re-organising timetables, encouraging the children at every stage. The challenges are the grit that produces the pearl.

What an extraordinary week it was!