My colleague Christine Marsden, Curriculum Development Manager at the Education Business Partnership talked to me at the Annual Lecture and told me about the Wykebeck Primary School art gallery project. I asked her to send me more so I could put it on the blog...

"Chris, On Wednesday 25th November I had the privilege of attending the Art Gallery exhibition put on by year 5/6 children from Wykebeck Primary School. The Education Business Partnership team had worked hard with the school to set up an Events Management social enterprise who decided that they wanted to show the community what the children at Wykebeck were capable of achieving and to celebrate this in a fun way. The project linked in with the topic being covered in science on life cycles. The children worked with an artist looking at work of Maurits Escher, Andy Warhol and Jean Jacques Rousseau to their own pieces using pastel, paint, collage and photography. They visited the art gallery and looked at how an exhibition is set up and how to display art which they then used to influence their own exhibition. The children voted for their best pieces which were printed as postcards and sold at the Art event. The Co-Op donated drinks and chocolate biscuits for the event, the sale of which raised money for the school Christmas activities. The Events Management team applied for a small business loan from the EBP to get them started and are looking to repay this through the sale of their postcards and other future work. The children really enjoyed the day and were proud of their achievements. They all said that they had spent more time on their work as they knew it was to be exhibited and this would be seen by others outside of school. They are now looking at how they can expand their exhibition, working with the Art gallery. Christine."

This sounds an extraordinary project and I am only sorry that I missed it. I could do with some pictures to capture the magic!
Chris