A Northumberland first school has commissioned a pottery painting expert to ensure that their values and ethos will be on display to pupils, staff and visitors.
Lorna Watkinson from Warkworth set up her business, Rainbow Pottery Painting in 2012 after taking her redundancy from the corporate world of advertising. Her business has gone from strength to strength after seeing success across schools in Newcastle, North Tyneside and Northumberland.
She has previously created unique workshops for school children based on famous artists like Van Gogh, Kandinsky and Quentin Blake where she helped students make their own ceramic tile based on the work of the famous artists. Her latest project at Grange View CE First School involved the students creating a wall display to welcome visitors to the school.
Year 2 Class Teacher and Arts Coordinator Miss Laura Stanton explained that the school wanted a lasting reminder in the entrance area to remind everyone about its school values, its vision for every student and the school’s ethos.
“The display is amazing,” said Miss Stanton. “It has immediate impact and it clearly shows the things we value within the school. These include the fact we are a church school, we teach British Values and have our own SPARKLE statement .We believe in sharing a smile, loving everyone as you would like to be loved and having kind hands, feet and voice. In short, it’s a lasting reminder of how we can all be good citizens and it’s a good example for the children.”
Over a number of months, every child in Reception up to Year 4 painted a tile with their own unique design. Once all of the tiles were complete, Lorna fired the tiles and pieced them together creating the final display.
“The pupils themselves really enjoyed the creative sessions and thought long and hard about their designs,” said Lorna. “I was really pleased to see the creativity pouring out of the children. They really used their imagination and now they have a permanent reminder of their school’s values that they have been involved in every time they walk through the doors.”
Annabelle loved painting on her design while others used smiling faces, hearts and even a dentist to get their interpretations onto the tiles.
Lorna is now in talks with other schools in Northumberland who may want to preserve their visions or indeed heritage by using interactive workshops with their students.
As well as working in schools, Lorna takes her unique workshops to local community groups, care homes and small businesses. She is also working with larger corporate businesses to provide team building and staff development sessions.
Lorna has been booked by the school to carry out a new project with the children in September.
Rainbow Pottery Painting can be found at http://www.rainbowpotterypainting.co.uk