Case Study Two

Robinsfield School

Robinsfield School is an infant school in Westminster  in London, with 240 children on roll. It is a community school in St John's  Wood with a culturally rich intake of pupils from 45 heritage countries and  speaking 36 heritage languages. Over 60% of its pupils speak English as an  additional language, most of them are beginners in English on arrival at  the School - 25% of the pupils in the School have mild to complex special  educational needs.

The work and thinking of Prof. Ken Robinson, whose committee report All Our Futures was mentioned at the start of this paper, is actively supported by Sheila Sansbury, the Head Teacher at Robinsfield School. Like many head teachers around the country, she is committed to keeping the creative arts alive in school. The development of art education at Robinsfield School illustrates how one inner city infant school has been determined to prevent being squeezed out of the curriculum and how many of the ideas gathered at the Visual Learning Foundation courses have been put into action. Daisy Thomas, the Art Curriculum Leader has been in post at Robinsfield since 1998. She is actually employed three days a week. For two of those days she provides one day of release for the DHT and one day of the release for the ICT Co-ordinator. It was agreed that on the days that Daisy has each of their classes she would teach art, as well as history, geography and RE with the children, taking on the planning, record keeping and assessment of these areas of learning. On the third day Daisy covers classes to enable other colleagues to work on areas of curriculum development. There have been two separate but related strands to the development of the children's art at Robinsfield. The core of the work is that which grows out of the Schemes of Work.

Development of the Schemes of Work

When Daisy took up her post there was no school-wide Scheme of Work in place for art. There was however a well-established tradition of visual art within the School and a commitment from the Head Teacher and governing body to maintain and develop visual art. At her previous school Daisy had attended courses run by the VLF and, supported by the Head Teacher, Daisy continued her links with the VLF. In particular she attended the course that focused on writing a Scheme of Work and then used both the format and some of the ideas to develop a Scheme of Work for the whole school at Robinsfield. Daisy built up the units in the Scheme of Work by delivering them in her own classes and so could show by example not only that they worked but that they also supported the children in producing quality outcomes. Copies of units from the Scheme of Work discussed in this case study are given here. What is important about the Schemes is the clarity of the learning outcomes and assessment opportunities as well as the links with the core subjects. Each class currently devotes two hours per week to visual art.

Art Start Project

In 1998 the School took part in 'Art Start', a project led by the Visual Learning Foundation and sponsored by Crayola. All participating schools received £200 and had their training with the VLF paid. For the School it was an important catalyst as the VLF was able to work with the whole staff and introduce a consistent way of working on art projects. The key principle underlying the approach to art at Robinsfield is that all artwork must start with drawing. For this project the theme of the 'eye' was chosen. Year 2 children began by drawing large charcoal drawings of an eye; they then developed this work to produce labelled watercolour diagrams of the eye.
The summer exhibition

At the end of each Summer Term the School holds its own art exhibition when the work from every class is displayed on screens as if it were a picture gallery. Work from every child in every class is displayed. Not only is this an affirming and celebratory experience for children, their parents and staff, it also shows clearly the progression in the Scheme of Work and the fact that the skill progression is visible in the quality of work the children produce as they move up the School. One of the most important points to emerge from the evaluation of the children's work is the high degree of independence they have acquired in art from Year 1 to Year 2 and the tangible evidence of skills learnt being transferred. Box One includes a selection of comments from the visitors to the exhibition.

  Reviews of the Exhibition

'Never seen anything like it!'

'Great to see lots of energy and excitement in art'

'Fascinating range of work and expression    from pupils...'

'So wonderful to see such creative, inspiring    work on display...'

'A wonderful exhibition that shows such great    exploration of their world through different mediums - really worthwhile'    

'A real joy!'

'La mostra ci e piaciuta moltissimo! Belissimo    la nostra foto esposta.Viola non vede l'ora di partecipare!'




 

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