We have thoroughly enjoyed taking part in the ‘Writing Through Art’ project this year. All of the children have gained a lot from looking at the paintings and finding out about various aspects of history and art. Both their verbal and written responses have been very detailed and original. The project has helped them to articulate their thoughts and ideas and they have been able to give honest, genuine and thoughtful responses. All of the children thoroughly enjoyed the trip to Kenwood House and the opportunity to see the paintings and artefacts in real life has enhanced their understanding!
We have also really enjoyed teaching the sessions.
This is the third year we have taken part in this project. Each year it has been a pleasure to watch the children engage with art that they would not normally be exposed to. In particular, we found it fascinating to see how much knowledge they had firstly learned but also retained during their visit to Kenwood House.
It was great to have a range of different writing outcomes but at times it was difficult to achieve high quality writing given the short time frame for each text type. It might have been better to focus on one text type over two weeks, giving the children the chance to deepen their knowledge of that genre (even if the picture changed each week). Having said that, the children did produce some fantastic writing particularly for the diary and letter.
One of the highlights was seeing the children discuss art at a level far beyond my expectations. For this reason alone, the project holds many merits and I look forward to next year!
We really enjoyed the Writing through Art Project. We did build up each week to the writing using the paintings within our English lessons. This meant that the quality of the work the children produced was good.
We found that children found some of the paintings easier to access than others – the portrait of John Joseph Merlin they particularly enjoyed, arguing in a debate for and against the gouty chair. They loved hearing the stories about the inventor and on the visit to Kenwood House seeing a gouty chair and the skeleton clock was a real highlight. Indeed, the tour really did work well to bring the pictures to life. The children observed perspective, depth of colour and were blown away by the size of the Landseer’s painting of the heron.
The painting of the canal in winter they found a little harder to write about and it seemed a little bleak to present it to them in the middle of summer! I think we would find it helpful to build a vocabulary bank for each picture in the future to support children.
Many thanks! Zoe and Ellie, Ashmount Primary School
This is the first year we have taken part in the project. We had decided to use it as a base for our English teaching during the 5 weeks and we were glad we did. Our class had time to explore the paintings and the themes and stories behind them for longer time each week. This resulted in greater learning and enthusiasm for the project. The enthusiasm and motivation was clear from the start. As a cross curricular project, gave us time to learn new things, following a little bit what attracted our and the kids’ interest.
Although some of the writing tasks seemed daunting to achieve in a week, we found ways of supporting our pupils so they could do each genre and task justice. But I suspect this was mainly because we had a week to work and prepare each piece of writing.
The class enjoyed the blogging but they found disappointing the few responses to their comments or posts. There were lots of posts each week, but perhaps setting clearer parameters about commenting and replies may help future engagement with the blog. It’s a tricky one really. We would like to encourage our parents and the wider school community to be involved next year.
Creating the art work and touring the collection was absolutely wonderful. It was another opportunity to revisit their learning, and show off a little bit too.
Bringing parents into the whole project through the ‘Art showcase’ at the end was also great for those who managed to visit. It would have been great if the art work had been displayed for a week, so it was easier for those parents who couldn’t make it within the hour and half given. It would have provided also an extra an opportunity for us to encourage parents to find the time to visit.
Could we create a ‘best’ sample collection for parents, schools and visitors of the Kenwood collection, to buy at the end of the project? For many kids, being published in the blog was an added motivation for writing. It would be great to collect all that wonderful work into a collection of writing that can be shared across all schools and beyond the duration of the event. Showing some of the writing alongside the art work may be a good idea in future too.
Thanks a lot for providing this opportunity for our pupils. At Tufnell Park we have really enjoyed it.
The children really enjoyed the Kenwood House project and as a result of their enthusiasm, they produced some outstanding pieces of writing. They particularly enjoyed displaying their work on the blog and having the opportunity to comment on other pieces of work – especially from pupils in other schools. All children found the work engaging and were fascinated by seeing the actual paintings that we studied in real life. A fantastic project!
Hanover loves the Writing through Art project! The children were really inspired and challenged by the novelty of basing their literacy work on a painting, rather than a book.
However, with the constraints of the new curriculum, it was difficult to fit in enough time to enjoy the paintings and then produce quality written work. When we last participated in this project, we used all of our English lessons for a whole week to focus on each painting. Unfortunately, we tried to cram the work into a single morning this time and the quality of the written work wasn’t as good.
Nevertheless, the children thoroughly enjoyed their visit to see the paintings and were excited about seeing their own artwork in the Saturday exhibition.
Thank you to everyone involved in providing such a worthwhile and fun experience!
This was my first year participating in the Writing Through Art project and I must admit I was really surprised to see my class so enthusiastic to find out which painting they would be focussing on each week. Their ability to respond to and talk about art increased immensely throughout the project and it was wonderful for them to share their knowledge when we visited Kenwood House. It would have been nice to have had longer in the house, as it felt some discussions were rushed, and the children were eager to explore other paintings that we had not studied.
I also agree that it would be lovely for some of the children’s writing to be displayed alongside the artwork.
The children thoroughly enjoyed analysing the art pieces, and learned a lot of facts about each of the paintings. The tour of Kenwood House and the paintings enabled them to learn even more, which they loved! The text types were well suited to the paintings. Because this term is particularly hectic, we found that we rushed some of the pieces of writing and therefore the quality of writing was compromised. If we are to do it again, I think we would run a painting over 2 weeks so that the children have a chance to gain a deeper understanding of the text type.
It would have also been good to display some of the writing at the exhibition as well as the art. Thank you!
My children have really enjoyed the project and looking at the pictures. They retained a lot of information about the pictures which they impressed me with when they discussed them on the tour today. They have a greater knowledge now about some different types of painting and some famous artists than they did before, as well as about the time periods that they were painted in. My children really enjoyed posting to the blog and being able to read other children’s writing though sometimes they couldn’t post their comments as the blog found it difficult to cope with so much traffic at once.
It has been quite tricky to the fit the project in alongside our other commitments/topics this term and we didn’t quite complete all of the pictures until this week as the end of last half term was manic. It would be nice to have some of their writing displayed as well as their art work as we spent more time on their writing than the art. It would have been wonderful to have more time in the house today as the children were really enjoying looking at the pictures and wanted to see more.
We have thoroughly enjoyed taking part in the ‘Writing Through Art’ project this year. All of the children have gained a lot from looking at the paintings and finding out about various aspects of history and art. Both their verbal and written responses have been very detailed and original. The project has helped them to articulate their thoughts and ideas and they have been able to give honest, genuine and thoughtful responses. All of the children thoroughly enjoyed the trip to Kenwood House and the opportunity to see the paintings and artefacts in real life has enhanced their understanding!
We have also really enjoyed teaching the sessions.
This is the third year we have taken part in this project. Each year it has been a pleasure to watch the children engage with art that they would not normally be exposed to. In particular, we found it fascinating to see how much knowledge they had firstly learned but also retained during their visit to Kenwood House.
It was great to have a range of different writing outcomes but at times it was difficult to achieve high quality writing given the short time frame for each text type. It might have been better to focus on one text type over two weeks, giving the children the chance to deepen their knowledge of that genre (even if the picture changed each week). Having said that, the children did produce some fantastic writing particularly for the diary and letter.
One of the highlights was seeing the children discuss art at a level far beyond my expectations. For this reason alone, the project holds many merits and I look forward to next year!
We really enjoyed the Writing through Art Project. We did build up each week to the writing using the paintings within our English lessons. This meant that the quality of the work the children produced was good.
We found that children found some of the paintings easier to access than others – the portrait of John Joseph Merlin they particularly enjoyed, arguing in a debate for and against the gouty chair. They loved hearing the stories about the inventor and on the visit to Kenwood House seeing a gouty chair and the skeleton clock was a real highlight. Indeed, the tour really did work well to bring the pictures to life. The children observed perspective, depth of colour and were blown away by the size of the Landseer’s painting of the heron.
The painting of the canal in winter they found a little harder to write about and it seemed a little bleak to present it to them in the middle of summer! I think we would find it helpful to build a vocabulary bank for each picture in the future to support children.
Many thanks! Zoe and Ellie, Ashmount Primary School
This is the first year we have taken part in the project. We had decided to use it as a base for our English teaching during the 5 weeks and we were glad we did. Our class had time to explore the paintings and the themes and stories behind them for longer time each week. This resulted in greater learning and enthusiasm for the project. The enthusiasm and motivation was clear from the start. As a cross curricular project, gave us time to learn new things, following a little bit what attracted our and the kids’ interest.
Although some of the writing tasks seemed daunting to achieve in a week, we found ways of supporting our pupils so they could do each genre and task justice. But I suspect this was mainly because we had a week to work and prepare each piece of writing.
The class enjoyed the blogging but they found disappointing the few responses to their comments or posts. There were lots of posts each week, but perhaps setting clearer parameters about commenting and replies may help future engagement with the blog. It’s a tricky one really. We would like to encourage our parents and the wider school community to be involved next year.
Creating the art work and touring the collection was absolutely wonderful. It was another opportunity to revisit their learning, and show off a little bit too.
Bringing parents into the whole project through the ‘Art showcase’ at the end was also great for those who managed to visit. It would have been great if the art work had been displayed for a week, so it was easier for those parents who couldn’t make it within the hour and half given. It would have provided also an extra an opportunity for us to encourage parents to find the time to visit.
Could we create a ‘best’ sample collection for parents, schools and visitors of the Kenwood collection, to buy at the end of the project? For many kids, being published in the blog was an added motivation for writing. It would be great to collect all that wonderful work into a collection of writing that can be shared across all schools and beyond the duration of the event. Showing some of the writing alongside the art work may be a good idea in future too.
Thanks a lot for providing this opportunity for our pupils. At Tufnell Park we have really enjoyed it.
The children really enjoyed the Kenwood House project and as a result of their enthusiasm, they produced some outstanding pieces of writing. They particularly enjoyed displaying their work on the blog and having the opportunity to comment on other pieces of work – especially from pupils in other schools. All children found the work engaging and were fascinated by seeing the actual paintings that we studied in real life. A fantastic project!
Hanover loves the Writing through Art project! The children were really inspired and challenged by the novelty of basing their literacy work on a painting, rather than a book.
However, with the constraints of the new curriculum, it was difficult to fit in enough time to enjoy the paintings and then produce quality written work. When we last participated in this project, we used all of our English lessons for a whole week to focus on each painting. Unfortunately, we tried to cram the work into a single morning this time and the quality of the written work wasn’t as good.
Nevertheless, the children thoroughly enjoyed their visit to see the paintings and were excited about seeing their own artwork in the Saturday exhibition.
Thank you to everyone involved in providing such a worthwhile and fun experience!
This was my first year participating in the Writing Through Art project and I must admit I was really surprised to see my class so enthusiastic to find out which painting they would be focussing on each week. Their ability to respond to and talk about art increased immensely throughout the project and it was wonderful for them to share their knowledge when we visited Kenwood House. It would have been nice to have had longer in the house, as it felt some discussions were rushed, and the children were eager to explore other paintings that we had not studied.
I also agree that it would be lovely for some of the children’s writing to be displayed alongside the artwork.
The children thoroughly enjoyed analysing the art pieces, and learned a lot of facts about each of the paintings. The tour of Kenwood House and the paintings enabled them to learn even more, which they loved! The text types were well suited to the paintings. Because this term is particularly hectic, we found that we rushed some of the pieces of writing and therefore the quality of writing was compromised. If we are to do it again, I think we would run a painting over 2 weeks so that the children have a chance to gain a deeper understanding of the text type.
It would have also been good to display some of the writing at the exhibition as well as the art. Thank you!
My children have really enjoyed the project and looking at the pictures. They retained a lot of information about the pictures which they impressed me with when they discussed them on the tour today. They have a greater knowledge now about some different types of painting and some famous artists than they did before, as well as about the time periods that they were painted in. My children really enjoyed posting to the blog and being able to read other children’s writing though sometimes they couldn’t post their comments as the blog found it difficult to cope with so much traffic at once.
It has been quite tricky to the fit the project in alongside our other commitments/topics this term and we didn’t quite complete all of the pictures until this week as the end of last half term was manic. It would be nice to have some of their writing displayed as well as their art work as we spent more time on their writing than the art. It would have been wonderful to have more time in the house today as the children were really enjoying looking at the pictures and wanted to see more.