PSHE

Wishes on a Dandelion – Sherdley Primary’s 50th Anniversary

| Claire

Every Dandelion you see today grew from the seed from another dandelion. Maybe the dandelion seed was blown by the wind, or maybe it was blown last year by one of the children from Sherdley Primary.

The seeds that grew last year’s dandelions might have been blown by another child who’s grown older and gone to high school now. Their dandelion’s seed might have been blown from it’s stem by a parent when they went to school. Dandelions can grow in all sorts of places and live for more than 10 years, so maybe, just maybe the dandelions we see today can be traced back to a child who was here when Sherdley Primary opened 50 years ago.

This is the premise on which a whole-school programme of arts activity was based to celebrate Sherdley Primary School’s 50th Anniversary in April 2021. Using something that we can see now in the present, to celebrate the past and make wishes for the future. Children from every class were invited to make prints onto a postcard and to find a dandelion clock and make a wish for Sherdley Primary’s future, with each class from Y1 through to Y6 taking part in additional art workshops that led to the designs for an anniversary mural and garden in the grounds of the school.

Delivered in partnership with Cultured St Helens these workshops included observational drawing of natural forms, stamp-making, experimental drawing using gestures, shadows and spotlights and workshops plus workshops by partners UC Crew which connected Hip Hop Arts and its values to those of the school community.

Pupils hands were covered in chalk and charcoal as they created larger scale drawings of each other’s shadows expressing emotions, seed-filled sculptures were constructed, sketchbook pages filled with drawings of flora and fauna that was gathered from nearby greenspaces, and spray can techniques were practiced in the sunny spells between April showers.

All of these elements were brought together into a design that uses stenciled elements that I have used in my previous works such as Keep the Pavement Dry and Migrate combined with the graffiti art skills of James from UC Crew. This was complemented by the beginnings of an anniversary garden in front of the mural sown with perennial flower seeds, dandelion clock sculptures containing more seeds and golden stones with drawings of dandelions edging the planting areas.

Two trees, hands and leaves are spray painted onto the side of a storage container. Petal shapes are formed on the soil in front, edged by golden stones.

Constellations of Kindness

| Claire

Stars are the specks of light in the dark skies, and are there even when we can’t see them. They have been used as symbols of guidance, energy, hopes and positivity and in the Autumn of 2020 Allanson Street Primary School and St Peter’s C of E Primary School used them to create images, actions and objects that mean something to us as individuals.

  • Symbolic lights passed around the class.
  • Positive actions written on lengths of tracing paper, lit by a constellation of fairy lights

Beginning by passing our positive actions around the class with a symbolic handful of light, we worked to create a number of art installations which take the idea of stars and how we view them collectively in constellations as a metaphor for how a community can work together. The story of Hoshi and the legend of the origami lucky stars inspires a creative activity where the classes worked together to create their own jars of paper stars, which led to some pupils setting up their own club following the sessions.

One night while watching the stars, something happened in the sky that made her sad and she began to cry. The stars were falling out of heaven like a shower. So many of them were falling that she was afraid there would be no more.

The story of Hoshi

With magazine cuttings, found text and images pupils used compositional skills to lay out a design that created a message linked to emotions and kindness, then used drawing pins to prick holes into black card along the outlines of those shapes. Placed together against a window, these formed our third art installation, full of symbolic objects and positive text. A short poetry session using the principles of Concrete Poetry creates an additional literacy related artwork.

The incredible deep splash
a few amazing homes.
A great tender cat,
fantastic animal friends
were being brave & fun

A new rebooted world. Brave NHS
incredible NHS,
look how the NHS helps us.

A good new heart
in our little wonder world.
Incredible world.
Team up, play
like a little wonder.

Y4, St Peter’s C of E Primary, 2020.

This set of workshops gives pupils the confidence to develop a collaborative contemporary artwork using visual symbolism and metaphor, which connects to the PSHE, Art & Design and Literacy curriculum. This workshop is part of Cultured St Helens programme (LCEP). If you’re outside St Helens and would like to book this session for your school or organisation, get in touch.