Artsmark school Fowey River Academy have been busy developing their Arts and Culture offer. This Artsmark Celebration Week they’re sharing some of their wonderful projects and their plans for the future!
Recently, Year 10 and 11 took an arts trip to St Ives. They visited the Barbara Hepworth gallery and completed a drawing and sculpture workshop. They then we went to The Tate St Ives and had a guided tour.
“Students found it invaluable as many of them had never been to a gallery before and with the disruption of the past 3 years, we haven’t been able to run as many trips as we would like to.” says art teacher Carla.
During their Summer project week, students in years 7, 8 and 9 were given a brief to create positive paintings to display around the school site. They designed, sketched and painted them all by themselves, which resulted in these beautiful, bright paintings to be shown all around the school!
“We are trying to promote displaying artwork around the school and students learning the value of their work and creating exhibition quality work at all times, both in lessons and extra curricular.”
Another group of students have started creating some murals around school to brighten the place up. These were inspired by the students researching artist Jen Stark, as well as some underwater scene murals being worked on by year 7 and 8 students. A group of Year 9s are also working on a winter wonderland mural!
Coming up at Fowey River Academy, there are arts and cultural trips planned to inspire the students. “We have a trip to the Box in Plymouth at the end of the month for year 8 to explore the British Art Show, complete with workshop. Then later in the year the opportunity for 120 students to visit Falmouth University for workshops in Art, Photography, Drama and Music.”
“Our talented drama students, who are part of a Cornish ensemble, are receiving additional skills training from the Royal Shakespeare Company. They will be working towards a showcase at Hall for Cornwall in June.” Says Drama teacher Sarah. In addition, Sarah has been on further RSC training and “we’ve continued our partnership with Hall for Cornwall and have dance students working with dance practitioners towards a dance showcase at Hall for Cornwall in February. Year 10 GCSE Drama students are taking part in a specially commissioned scripted performance, also at HfC in the winter term.”
“In school we are focussed on building student skills in theatre design, particularly sound and lighting. We have professional theatre technicians calendared in to run workshops with students so that we can build up a small but highly skilled tech team.”
As Christmas gets closer, the opportunity to link this time of year with arts and culture has not been missed! “Drama Club is in mid rehearsals for their Christmas show – the comedy Kidnapped at Christmas. We have also got Key Stage 3 students going to see Hall for Cornwall’s Christmas show – Treasure Island in December 5th.”
The Arts and Culture offer at Fowey River Academy continues to grow as they use the Artsmark Award framework to guide the development!
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