The course was brilliant, the children got so much more out of the paintings than I had expected. The process was well thought out and enabled the children to build key skills especially in questioning and anticipating hidden meanings. They really enjoyed seeing the paintings and there was an air of excitement each time they saw the real paintings. I was impressed with how engaged they became with each one and was proud of how they were able to interact with the staff and Michael at Kenwood House. The art certainly inspired some impressive creating and gave it a greater context. Thank you.
I found that The Writing Through Art course was extremely engaging for the children in my class, inspiring them to produce excellent writing. It also developed speaking and listening skills, being a springboard for a great deal of interesting discussion and drama. The box provided by Islington Library service enhanced our drama lessons and made the paintings come alive for the children. The course was well organised, the pictures well chosen and as a teacher you were provided with everything you needed for informative and creative lessons. Kenwood House and its picture collection is a marvellous local resource which the children greatly enjoyed visiting. They also enjoyed the blog, looking at the work of other children and joining in discussions.
Elisa Yerbury
This was the first year I have taught the Writing Through Art course but I had heard great things from colleagues who had worked in Y4 previously. The children were also looking forward to the course from September, having heard about it from older children, and couldn’t wait to get started! The children loved all of the sessions and you could feel the buzz on days they knew they would have a session.
The paintings selected were brilliant and appealed to a range of interests. Even our least enthusiastic boy writers couldn’t resist getting exited about the Landseer! As a teacher, it was rewarding to hear the children discussing the pictures with growing sophistication and confidence each week.
The writing produced was of a high standard, with some children producing their best work in response to the course. I think the confidence and enthusiasm awakened in some children has carried on throughout the year.
The online forum helped build excitement around the project.
The children still talk about the course and can still remember the painting studied. For example, a painting of Landseer working on the bronze lions for Trafalgar Square came up in a guided reading book, prompting a long discussion about him and other works!
The children in year 4 at Rotherfield thoroughly enjoyed this project. The resources engaged the children and gave them a context, in addition to the excellent resources the lessons were also well received by the children. As a class teacher, I found the resources and lessons easy to use and engaging. The children attacked every part of this project with energy and enthusiasm, to my delight they produced some fantastic work and made progress in their writing. As none of my children attended the ‘showcase’ at the end, it would be fantastic if this could happen on a school day at the end of the project, so that I could take the children to Kenwood House to view their own work in such a magnificent setting.
Adam, Rotherfield
Writing Through Art is a project that has been run at Kenwood for a few years and we were very happy to host it again after the restoration was completed.
At Kenwood we hosted an introductory sessions for the teachers, which was a nice way to meet those involved and to get to know some more local teachers. As we are trying to promote our education programme, it was fantastic way to let local schools know about our offer and how they can use Kenwood House to inspire their students.
Michael gave us access to the blogs, which was nice to follow what the students were learning, it was also very valuable in working out what to talk about during their tours as we knew what they might be interested in and what they had learnt. It would have been nice if there is capacity in the future for someone from Kenwood to go and speak to the pupils in the school before they come to visit. That way we could give a little bit of context as some of the pupils were very interested in the history.
It was a pleasure to then welcome all the classes to Kenwood to give short tours of the paintings they had studied. These two weeks were very busy with numerous visits a day. We were all very impressed with the level of knowledge and enthusiasm of the classes and they all knew at least some things about the paintings. They could talk about the different creative tasks they had had to do and most students had a favourite painting. It was nice to see the rapport that Michael had with the students and his introduction before the visit made sure that the classes were all very well behaved.
In terms of logistics we tried to have 3 staff members (one was one of our educational freelancers) on each session, so we could break the classes into small enough groups. It would have been nice to have a bit more time with the classes as some not all of the paintings got equal time and sometimes it felt a bit rushed with the bigger groups. The students seemed to respond well to seeing the pictures in the house and they noticed things that were not obvious on their computer screens.
The final celebration was a lovely day, it was nice to see their work in the house and to be able to welcome the teacher, students and families back more informally. Mostly the teachers dropped off the work in good time, there were just a few at the end who brought them un-mounted, luckily we had some canvases and boxes we could put them on, but it might be an idea to suggest that to teachers in future, as one teacher seemed unhappy with the way I had mounted and displayed the work. It was very rewarding to see so many families in the house and seeing the children pass on their knowledge to their parents. The public also responded very well to the mini exhibition.
From us here at Kenwood the project was a massive success. It added significantly to our education visit numbers and introduced us to Islington Schools in a very positive way. As I also run the family programme, I have noticed some of the families coming back to our holiday programmes. An extra bonus was that we managed to train our freelancer in how to run sessions on the paintings, which will be incredibly important for the sustainability of the Caring for Kenwood Project, as she will be able to lead sessions once I have left.
Kirsty Pattison. English Heritage
Writing through Art has been a highly effective way of engaging some of our reluctant writers to put pen to paper and express themselves confidently through a variety of different genres.
Furthermore, this unit has been an excellent opportunity for children to broaden their knowledge of the Arts and has provided a platform for them to share and show pride in their acquired knowledge to members of their immediate home circle as well as being a means to engage with their peers across other schools in the borough, on the same piece of work.
We, as educators, have enjoyed seeing children grow in confidence – so much so that they can be experts on particular pieces of artworks; in addition, it has been an absolute pleasure to witness our students engage so vibrantly in an environment where many might not have previously had the inclination to visit.
As teachers, this project is a joy to participate in. The format is accessible, easy to follow and very cleverly planned out in how it draws the children in and engages their interests in the pieces being studied. Moreover, its content provides exponential scope for deeper study and further independent investigation by the more able child.
Eithne and Sarah, Canonbury School
I thought the project was excellent. The writing my children produced was some of the best writing they produced this year. The Art Work and the stories behind the Art Work was very stimulating for their imaginations and provided rich potential for description. I loved that you covered a range of genres too. The powerpoints wer so informative and they really saved planning time for teachers, ensuring that teachers could also really enjoy the project. My highlights were the advert, as this genre has a really strong awarenss of the reader and also the Turner painting as it really stimulated their senses.
It was brilliant that it culminated in a trip to Kenwood. It was wonderful for the children to be experts on the paintings and the tour guides were amazingly informative and engaging.
The blog was a fantastic addition to the project. this really made the children feel part of a bigger community and the opportunity to have their work displayed really motivated them to try hard in their writing.
My only criticism is that one hour per session is not enough. I needed two sessions to throughly cover the story of the painting and model the writing and sometimes even plan the writing. Next time, I would also love more drawing activities tied in with the writing, but I guess as a teacher that is something I can plan more for.
My children tell me they loved…
– learning about different painitngs and artists
– having the opportunity to draw, especially challenging, exciting things like the birds fighting
– vsiiting the paintings and being able to show their won family around on the exhibition day
– writing in response to the paintings
– seeing their work displayed on the bl;og and being able to write their own comments there.
Thank-you so much for providing such a rich opportunity for myself as a teacher and for my children. I hope it continues!
Anna, Ambler School
The children in my class really engaged well with the Writing Through Art project. They particularly enjoyed the hawking painting due to its size and gruesome subject. They also liked the small Turner painting and enjoyed writing about the violent, churning waves and the blasé, smoking man.
The range of responses was good and allowed children with different interests and strengths to produce high quality work throughout the project. In particular, the visual nature of the project and the strong emphasis on group discussion allowed those with English as an additional language to write confidently and make ambitious word choices.
The blog and end of project show gave the children an audience and purpose for their work. As such, they were engaged and motivated to work to their potential. The exhibition at Kenwood House also fostered great home-school links and allowed the children to take on the role of teachers. They were able to give their parents a tour of the paintings and share their growing knowledge of art history.
Abigail, Grafton School
The Writing Through Art project was an inspirational and transformative experience for both the children and myself. I had never heard of the project before, and was initially puzzled about how effective the paintings would be as springboards for literacy work. I soon discovered that with the excellent initial training and support materials provided, I was able to explore the artwork with my children to a depth that really surprised me. My children consistently produced high quality work and we were able to use many of our techniques from our ‘Power of reading’ lessons to further enhance the lesson suggestions already given.
On our class visit to Kenwood House, my pupils were enthusiastic and knowledgeable in their appreciation of the original paintings. Many of them chose to return to the final exhibition with their families and we enjoyed a lovely informal day together. Some of the families were visiting Kenwood House for the first time and one child had never been to an art gallery with his family before.
Creating our artwork for the exhibition was tremendous fun and I will definitely use the ideas again with future classes. My ability to create literacy lessons inspired by paintings, and my understanding of this art form increased enormously as a direct result of this excellent project. I do hope the project will continue in successive years and that I can continue to be a part of such a worthwhile experience.
The course was brilliant, the children got so much more out of the paintings than I had expected. The process was well thought out and enabled the children to build key skills especially in questioning and anticipating hidden meanings. They really enjoyed seeing the paintings and there was an air of excitement each time they saw the real paintings. I was impressed with how engaged they became with each one and was proud of how they were able to interact with the staff and Michael at Kenwood House. The art certainly inspired some impressive creating and gave it a greater context. Thank you.
I found that The Writing Through Art course was extremely engaging for the children in my class, inspiring them to produce excellent writing. It also developed speaking and listening skills, being a springboard for a great deal of interesting discussion and drama. The box provided by Islington Library service enhanced our drama lessons and made the paintings come alive for the children. The course was well organised, the pictures well chosen and as a teacher you were provided with everything you needed for informative and creative lessons. Kenwood House and its picture collection is a marvellous local resource which the children greatly enjoyed visiting. They also enjoyed the blog, looking at the work of other children and joining in discussions.
Elisa Yerbury
This was the first year I have taught the Writing Through Art course but I had heard great things from colleagues who had worked in Y4 previously. The children were also looking forward to the course from September, having heard about it from older children, and couldn’t wait to get started! The children loved all of the sessions and you could feel the buzz on days they knew they would have a session.
The paintings selected were brilliant and appealed to a range of interests. Even our least enthusiastic boy writers couldn’t resist getting exited about the Landseer! As a teacher, it was rewarding to hear the children discussing the pictures with growing sophistication and confidence each week.
The writing produced was of a high standard, with some children producing their best work in response to the course. I think the confidence and enthusiasm awakened in some children has carried on throughout the year.
The online forum helped build excitement around the project.
The children still talk about the course and can still remember the painting studied. For example, a painting of Landseer working on the bronze lions for Trafalgar Square came up in a guided reading book, prompting a long discussion about him and other works!
We look forward to Writing Through Art next year!
Lucy, Duncombe
The children in year 4 at Rotherfield thoroughly enjoyed this project. The resources engaged the children and gave them a context, in addition to the excellent resources the lessons were also well received by the children. As a class teacher, I found the resources and lessons easy to use and engaging. The children attacked every part of this project with energy and enthusiasm, to my delight they produced some fantastic work and made progress in their writing. As none of my children attended the ‘showcase’ at the end, it would be fantastic if this could happen on a school day at the end of the project, so that I could take the children to Kenwood House to view their own work in such a magnificent setting.
Adam, Rotherfield
Writing Through Art is a project that has been run at Kenwood for a few years and we were very happy to host it again after the restoration was completed.
At Kenwood we hosted an introductory sessions for the teachers, which was a nice way to meet those involved and to get to know some more local teachers. As we are trying to promote our education programme, it was fantastic way to let local schools know about our offer and how they can use Kenwood House to inspire their students.
Michael gave us access to the blogs, which was nice to follow what the students were learning, it was also very valuable in working out what to talk about during their tours as we knew what they might be interested in and what they had learnt. It would have been nice if there is capacity in the future for someone from Kenwood to go and speak to the pupils in the school before they come to visit. That way we could give a little bit of context as some of the pupils were very interested in the history.
It was a pleasure to then welcome all the classes to Kenwood to give short tours of the paintings they had studied. These two weeks were very busy with numerous visits a day. We were all very impressed with the level of knowledge and enthusiasm of the classes and they all knew at least some things about the paintings. They could talk about the different creative tasks they had had to do and most students had a favourite painting. It was nice to see the rapport that Michael had with the students and his introduction before the visit made sure that the classes were all very well behaved.
In terms of logistics we tried to have 3 staff members (one was one of our educational freelancers) on each session, so we could break the classes into small enough groups. It would have been nice to have a bit more time with the classes as some not all of the paintings got equal time and sometimes it felt a bit rushed with the bigger groups. The students seemed to respond well to seeing the pictures in the house and they noticed things that were not obvious on their computer screens.
The final celebration was a lovely day, it was nice to see their work in the house and to be able to welcome the teacher, students and families back more informally. Mostly the teachers dropped off the work in good time, there were just a few at the end who brought them un-mounted, luckily we had some canvases and boxes we could put them on, but it might be an idea to suggest that to teachers in future, as one teacher seemed unhappy with the way I had mounted and displayed the work. It was very rewarding to see so many families in the house and seeing the children pass on their knowledge to their parents. The public also responded very well to the mini exhibition.
From us here at Kenwood the project was a massive success. It added significantly to our education visit numbers and introduced us to Islington Schools in a very positive way. As I also run the family programme, I have noticed some of the families coming back to our holiday programmes. An extra bonus was that we managed to train our freelancer in how to run sessions on the paintings, which will be incredibly important for the sustainability of the Caring for Kenwood Project, as she will be able to lead sessions once I have left.
Kirsty Pattison. English Heritage
Writing through Art has been a highly effective way of engaging some of our reluctant writers to put pen to paper and express themselves confidently through a variety of different genres.
Furthermore, this unit has been an excellent opportunity for children to broaden their knowledge of the Arts and has provided a platform for them to share and show pride in their acquired knowledge to members of their immediate home circle as well as being a means to engage with their peers across other schools in the borough, on the same piece of work.
We, as educators, have enjoyed seeing children grow in confidence – so much so that they can be experts on particular pieces of artworks; in addition, it has been an absolute pleasure to witness our students engage so vibrantly in an environment where many might not have previously had the inclination to visit.
As teachers, this project is a joy to participate in. The format is accessible, easy to follow and very cleverly planned out in how it draws the children in and engages their interests in the pieces being studied. Moreover, its content provides exponential scope for deeper study and further independent investigation by the more able child.
Eithne and Sarah, Canonbury School
I thought the project was excellent. The writing my children produced was some of the best writing they produced this year. The Art Work and the stories behind the Art Work was very stimulating for their imaginations and provided rich potential for description. I loved that you covered a range of genres too. The powerpoints wer so informative and they really saved planning time for teachers, ensuring that teachers could also really enjoy the project. My highlights were the advert, as this genre has a really strong awarenss of the reader and also the Turner painting as it really stimulated their senses.
It was brilliant that it culminated in a trip to Kenwood. It was wonderful for the children to be experts on the paintings and the tour guides were amazingly informative and engaging.
The blog was a fantastic addition to the project. this really made the children feel part of a bigger community and the opportunity to have their work displayed really motivated them to try hard in their writing.
My only criticism is that one hour per session is not enough. I needed two sessions to throughly cover the story of the painting and model the writing and sometimes even plan the writing. Next time, I would also love more drawing activities tied in with the writing, but I guess as a teacher that is something I can plan more for.
My children tell me they loved…
– learning about different painitngs and artists
– having the opportunity to draw, especially challenging, exciting things like the birds fighting
– vsiiting the paintings and being able to show their won family around on the exhibition day
– writing in response to the paintings
– seeing their work displayed on the bl;og and being able to write their own comments there.
Thank-you so much for providing such a rich opportunity for myself as a teacher and for my children. I hope it continues!
Anna, Ambler School
The children in my class really engaged well with the Writing Through Art project. They particularly enjoyed the hawking painting due to its size and gruesome subject. They also liked the small Turner painting and enjoyed writing about the violent, churning waves and the blasé, smoking man.
The range of responses was good and allowed children with different interests and strengths to produce high quality work throughout the project. In particular, the visual nature of the project and the strong emphasis on group discussion allowed those with English as an additional language to write confidently and make ambitious word choices.
The blog and end of project show gave the children an audience and purpose for their work. As such, they were engaged and motivated to work to their potential. The exhibition at Kenwood House also fostered great home-school links and allowed the children to take on the role of teachers. They were able to give their parents a tour of the paintings and share their growing knowledge of art history.
Abigail, Grafton School
The Writing Through Art project was an inspirational and transformative experience for both the children and myself. I had never heard of the project before, and was initially puzzled about how effective the paintings would be as springboards for literacy work. I soon discovered that with the excellent initial training and support materials provided, I was able to explore the artwork with my children to a depth that really surprised me. My children consistently produced high quality work and we were able to use many of our techniques from our ‘Power of reading’ lessons to further enhance the lesson suggestions already given.
On our class visit to Kenwood House, my pupils were enthusiastic and knowledgeable in their appreciation of the original paintings. Many of them chose to return to the final exhibition with their families and we enjoyed a lovely informal day together. Some of the families were visiting Kenwood House for the first time and one child had never been to an art gallery with his family before.
Creating our artwork for the exhibition was tremendous fun and I will definitely use the ideas again with future classes. My ability to create literacy lessons inspired by paintings, and my understanding of this art form increased enormously as a direct result of this excellent project. I do hope the project will continue in successive years and that I can continue to be a part of such a worthwhile experience.
Kate. Hanover School