Little Gaddesden Church of England Primary School

Having decided that we would like to try a more creativeapproach to the curriculum we used Take One Picture as ourstarting point. One member of staff attended the CPD course atthe National Gallery and then led a staff inset day and trip tovisit the picture at the gallery.

Following this Key Stages 1 and 2 then used Tobias and the Angelas their stimulus for a whole half term’s work from thisSeptember. Each class developed their own interests but we alsointroduced a confident creative learning session each Wednesdayafternoon where children worked together on activities acrossthe key stages for three consecutive weeks. Children were giventhe opportunity to complete two cycles of activities and couldchoose from screen printing, willow weaving, angel wingconstruction, pot making and music, dance and drama. Duringthese sessions parents and a local basket weaver were invitedinto school to share their expertise and join in the fun.

To celebrate the children’s achievements we held an exhibitionand invited parents, governors and villagers to come and viewtheir work and watch the drama productions. Comments in ourvisitor book demonstrated how inspirational the project hasbeen.

Year 1 and 2 (Class 2) children explored the picture through drama activities, stepping through the frame and using their senses to see what they could see, hear, smell and touch.

Later they dressed up as the characters in the picture, creating dialogue and hotseating them. The children then worked together to improvise their own stories and create story maps before

writing them to share with other classes.

We explored the theme of angels at out local church and made careful sketches using different media.

Verrocchio visited Class 2 and demonstrated how to make egg tempura. The children all made their own paint and experimented trying to make different colours using

pigments. They then wrote instructions for other classes to use.

The children created their own masterpiece trying to achieve similarly bright colours using acrylic paint.

The children explored repeating patterns in maths lessons and used them to decorate their picture frames.

The children were fascinated by the magical qualities of the fish in the picture. They investigated different species of exotic fish before creating their own

designs. The children loved the vibrancy of the colours in their silk paintings and how they blended into each other to make stunning new shades.

Year 3 and 4 children (Class 3) focused on the theme of merchants. They sampled different breads, visited a mill and eventually created their own business, marketing and selling their bread to the rest of the school. Please see the attached print out

of their PowerPoint which they showed to visitors during our exhibition.

Children in years 5 and 6 (Class 4) started their topic by focusing on the clothes the characters were wearing. They worked in pairs using the magnifying tool on the

picture to create powerpoints in the style of an M&S advert to describe items of clothing .

Class 4 were intrigued by the castle in the picture. After investigating various castles they designed persuasive leaflets to attract visitors to their own castles

In their Creative learning sessions the children decided which aspects of the painting they wished to explore. They created their designs and planned how they could construct the sculptures working alongside Paul Weir a local basket maker.

One of the drama groups explored the theme of angels and protection. After brainstorming their ideas they created tableau x which they photographed and used to make a slideshow to the opening of ‘I want to know what love is’ by Foreigner. They then created a dance to the rest of

the song. The PowerPoint is in a separate folder on this disc.

The second drama group created an improvised drama to explore what happened in the hours before Tobias was depicted in the painting. They composed their own

soundtrack to the piece using tuned and untuned percussion including wine bottles and showed it at the exhibition.

The screen printing group designed their own pictures using two colour blocks and printed them onto fabric.

The angel wing group designed and made their very own wings to wear themselves!

After considering how Tobias had wished for a cure for his father, the children thought about what they might wish for themselves. They made beautiful boxes to

put their wishes in and then attached them to bio-degradable balloons and released them at the end of our exhibition afternoon.