Campaign Awareness Posters

We wanted to create an awareness campaign to show the general public the expression and love children with learning difficulties have for art! Here are some poster designs which I have made which we would have liked to be printed properly and also sent to the school to show them the work we have produced for them using the work from their students.

Here are some of Florrie's designs:

Animal Colouring/Collaging Gallery

Draw With Dancing Activity Gallery

Self Evaluation

Our topic was to work with the community to use the work we had learned from our drawing unit and use it within our workshops.

My group started off with not having a placement which meant meant we had to work together and find somewhere we could work. I think we started off really well for not even having somewhere to work and we all worked together effectively and communicated with each other to get a placement as quickly as possible. Once we had found our placement, Red Gates School, we were really welcomed and they were really excited for us to work alongside them and the students. We managed to go to the school soon after the email from them, and they were really free with our ideas and helpful on the kind of things we weren't sure about. They wanted us to observe the lessons a couple times first before our actual workshop as it would help us to be able to see what the children are like, how they learn and what restrictions we might have. Also, children who have severe learning difficulties can find it hard to meet new people and sometimes don't like it, so they wanted the children to become more familiar with our faces first. This also answered our question on whether we should stay with one class or rotate. Due to it being hard for the children to meet new people, it was best we were allocated one class and that we were split up into 4 groups as they can only cope with a few new faces at once which is when I paired with Florrie. One of the middle school classes consists of the teacher being the art coordinator so it only really made sense of us to work with that age range.

It was so interesting to sit in their class as they learn in such a different way compared to children without learning difficulties. We found that our class in particularly loved music and were very sensory which is what we wanted to involve in our workshop. We also found that it was best to have two activities going on at once so that they aren't focusing on one thing at a time. It was a really good experience to go into the class first as it worked and helped us for our ideas on what would be good or not with the children. And with the second lesson, it was also so useful as the most important thing we found was the concentration levels of the children as they had to focus more on the maths. Also in that lesson, me and Florrie learned that there was one student who really like drawing which was one of the main reasons we decided on the second activity to be including drawing and mark making. 

When we went to propose our ideas, it was really encouraging to know that the teachers were so encouraging with our ideas and so helpful with any adaptions we had to make.

I think that me and Florrie worked really hard and well to develop our ideas to get the most effective plan. We started with one idea of mark making and drawing with their feet to music, we started with just that one idea, as we observed their love for music, we developed from this to adding textured shoes if there were any students who didn't want paint on their feet, and also if there was a student who couldn't use their feet, that they could use their hands.We then added another activity to be going on at the same time. We wanted this one not to be so energetic as the dancing one was and we wanted to have a comparison. We came up with a few ideas such as taping a pen or crayon on to another part of their body and draw like that, or to make make onto their favourite animals and colour them in, another idea of using clay and another of making rubbings from textured objects. We thought that it might be hard to have the pens or crayons taped to a different part of the body of the children as they might constantly try to take it off, or wont like it being attached to them. A reason why we didn't choose the clay idea was because our brief was about drawing which would've been harder to do with clay and the children. And lastly, we had it between rubbings and colouring in animals and decided to go with the animals one as it linked with their topic of animals. We then developed that idea by including collage as some of the children don't understand drawing as much as other so giving them a choice was better and also adding fur and felt for the more sensory children.

When we had done this, I had an idea of creating an awareness campaign, this was because when we were speaking about the work with the teachers, we learnt that it was more about the process and getting the children to be able to learn from the art rather than the final outcome. But I thought that it would be a good idea to do something for their and make something from their work. I wanted to make some posters or create something from our experience and use our art talent as well as theirs. I really wanted to challenge the word of drawing, can drawing be used with another part of their body (feet), isn't drawing just movement (movement from dancing), and does drawing have to be realistic? It can be abstract, it can be a way of expression and not just doing the obvious. This is where I thought about showing this to the general public, the talent and expression from these children could show them that art is becoming more involved by people with learning difficulties as we learnt from watching the episode of 'outsider art'. 

I think our actual workshop went really well and the children absolutely loved it and the teachers also thought that it was really good. I think me and Florrie worked well together and bounced off each other with our ideas as well as both working together to help with more than one opinion. I think that we really thought about what would be the most beneficial and thoroughly analysed what would be the best ideas and materials to help the children. We both were really grateful for this experience and I personally learnt so much by working with them. It was lovely to see them enjoying the activities we worked hard to do for them, and also meeting them and getting to know them. It was a challenge as it is something which we are not used to but it gave me more of an understanding of people in general, and I loved helping them push the art within the school and allow them to express themselves. I also really loved working with my whole group and Claire as the group teacher as even though we were all split up we still helped each other and worked well together.

Teacher Feedback

The teachers said that our workshop/lesson with the children was really good and went really well. They said they liked that we put the animal drawings on the fence so that the children could be independent and choose for themselves, also good that they had a variety of choice. They also said that it was good that we had another alternative for the student who couldn't use his feet so he used his hands, (we also had this idea for one of the children who we found out broke her leg but she was on of the students who wasn't in that day). They said that it was good that we thought about the sensory students putting their feet in the paint and also the fur for collage, which they think the students loved.
They were glad that we had chosen animals for the children to colour in/ collage as their theme is animals at the moment, and they took the left over prints of the animals so they could use them again. They also said that they would definitely do the dancing in paint activity again because of how much the children loved it and how well it worked out.
We had a small amount of criticism from one of the assistance which was that none of the children really saw the textured shoes because they were on the table and they might have used them or thought about using them if they were more aware that they were available to use.

Our Workshop

On Friday 15th July was the day of our workshop with the children. My group met at the school gates at 8:45am-9:00am and once we were all together we walked into the school. We then signed in and went straight into our classrooms ready to set up. Before me and Florrie started to set up, we spoke to the teacher and assistance about how we wanted it to work and if they could help us to communicate to the children if they don't understand from us. They then gave us a box of the materials which they had got prepared for us. They didn't have any rolls of paper so we had to use different coloured sugar paper.

We decided that we would split the class in two, because one activity is very energetic and full on (dancing in paint) where as the other one is more calm and chilled (colouring in and collage), so if all the children were doing it all together, it might have been harder to manage and it would've got more messy as there are more children with paint on their feet running around. We also decided to separate the two activities so that the dancing one was inside as it would be better for the children to hear the music from the computer and the other activity outside so that they didn't get distracted by the loud music and paint.

We set up the activity outside first so it didn't matter if the children had arrived or not because they wouldn't be distracted as we were outside setting up. We decided for the children to be able to choose what animal they could have by pinning up the images on the fence and the children could go up to them and choose which one they wanted.

We then met the children and started with their normal morning routine of saying good morning, saying the day of the week (Friday) as well as the colour and smell they associate Friday with (yellow and lemon). It was also one of the children's birthdays in our class so they all sung happy birthday to him and announced that they were going to have a party later in the day. Once they had done that me and Florrie quickly set up the dancing activity by taping A3 coloured sugar paper together to make a dance floor for them, we had to put a plastic sheet down on the floor first to prevent as much paint going on the floors and we position it in a certain place in the room so that it wasn't near the carpet as the children might have ran on to the carpet with paint on their feet. We prepared another one early for the next group as well for when it was time to change.

Me and Florrie had split up and she started with the dancing workshop first with 3 students and I went outside with the other 3 students. There were only 6 students in the class today as 2 were away. I got my students to choose which animal they wanted and then walked them over to the table with their choice. While we were doing this Florrie was in the other room with her students, however one of them had to use his hands as he has special knots in his shoes so that he couldn't take them off.  By him using his hands it still allowed him to be part of the activity we just had to make an adaption.

This lasted around 7-10 minutes, we didn't completely stick to a specific timing as we wanted to just switch the groups when it was best and I found that it was better to lead the timing from the dancing activity as once they were finished we just changed over as even if they hadn't finished, they would still be able to carry on with it either after or another time.

I then took my group into the classroom, got them to take off their shoes and socks and put on an apron. We put on a playlist of songs and got the first child to choose the colour paint they wanted on their feet. We had to hold them while they put their feet in the trays of paint as it was a little bit slippery and we didn't want them to fall. The next child then chose a colour and then the next until they were all together dancing on the paper.

When we thought that it was time to finish, we got the children with the paint on their feet to sit down while one of the assistance washed their feet for them, otherwise they would be running around with all paint on their feet. Once they were all clean they sat back in their chairs in the circle and carried on listening to music while we cleaned up and put the work on the drying rack or outside to dry.

We then tidied everything up and got the children ready for their snack. I then photographed all of the work which they had produced, which we are planning to work with and potentially make something from them. Once we had done that we asked the teachers how they thought how it all went and if we were to do it again if they had any suggestions or criticism, general feedback of how they think it all went.

We then said our goodbyes and said thank you for letting us work with them.