Schools Project

2024 saw us working again with the Sir John Heron primary school in Newham and adding a second school, St Bede’s in Winchester, to the project. Here Rachel Warr and Ruth Martin worked with a group of 30 children to make Jumping Jack puppets and Ha Nguyen taught her group the skills of modelling and carving pieces of jewelry in wax, which were then cast in brass at her foundry. Meanwhile, at Sir John Heron, Carolyn Gowdy ran her ‘Passport for a Citizen of the Planet’ project with her group, joining Julie Arkell, whose children modelled papier mâché, and Paul Jakeman, whose group carved low relief designs in stone.

We again hosted an exhibition of the children’s work in the Master’s Room. However, as we were now working with two schools, we decided to invite them to the Guild not only to view it as in previous years but to take part in an activity day, working together on a design and making project. This was remarkably successful, with the children engaging enthusiastically with one another to work on the project brief. This was to imagine themselves as a Design Company asked to design ‘The Best Play Space Ever’, and then to work together in small groups to come up with a name and logo for their company, design a layout for their Play Space and finally to create with card and glue a 3-D model of a key feature of their design.

We continue to build the project and this year our group of teachers will be working with three primary schools, this time all in London. We will again be mounting an exhibition of their work and bringing them altogether to the Guild to view it and take part in another activity day.