Education e-news
November 03, 2009
Welcome to the November issue of education e-news – bringing you the latest developments from the education programme at Ropewalk Contemporary Art & Craft. The Ropewalk Education e-newsletter is designed to offer regular insight into our creative exploits throughout the academic year, and to complement the termly publication that’s received by every school in our region. If you’re not receiving Education News or you think e-news would be of interest to someone else within the school please letus know so we can update our mailing list. You can download a PDF version of the termly newsletter by clicking here
Ellie Collins
Education Officer
ellie@the-ropewalk.co.uk
FEATURED ARTIST – MARC RENSHAW
Students at St Hugh’s Communication and Interaction Specialist College certainly weren’t at a loose end during the October half term. Thanks to some funding awarded to our resident charity ST-ART we were able to link in with the national Campaign for Drawing’s 10 th Big Draw to deliver some creative workshops during the holiday focusing on drawing with new and familiar media, with activities ranging from felt making to book making, printmaking and collage. Well done to everyone involved for the fabulous work which was produced!
Insight is an annual open studios event which takes place each September. Artists throughout North and North East Lincolnshire open their doors to the public over two weekends to display and demystify the wealth and diversity of artwork being produced in our region. As part of Insight, each year The Ropewalk organises a series of free workshops in schools. This year twenty workshops took place, meaning that over 600 children were given the opportunity to work with a visiting artist for the day. The workshops are a valuable tool for both schools and artists and frequently help to foster longer working relationships, embedding creativity into learning. Feedback from this year’s workshops included the following:
“An excellent day, well led. Got some fabulous results. Many thanks.” (Gunness and Burringham Primary School)
“Thank you so much for providing us with the opportunity to take part in this. Be assured everyone of the 30 pupils and 2 staff enjoyed it!” ( Crosby Primary School)
”Brilliant, the children were really motivated and learnt / revised key skills. Good cross curricular links” ( Winterton Junior School)
“Some lovely and engaging ideas, pitched at exactly the right level. More please!” (St Luke’s Special School)
Thank you to all the teachers who returned their feedback following the workshops. This is an essential factor in ensuring we can continue to offer similar opportunities in the future.
FEATURED ARTIST – MARC RENSHAW
Here at The Ropewalk we are proud of our ethos of using only qualified and experienced artists to deliver for the education programme. This ensures we can offer the best of the region’s creative talent to our youngest visitors, fostering exceptional achievement in the arts for years to come.
Marc Renshaw has been delivering workshops for The Ropewalk since 2005. He specialises in drawing and his own work often has a quirky and humorous quality, making it particularly accessible to children. Marc is qualified to MA degree level in illustration, is a former teaching assistant within special education, and regularly delivers creative workshops for community groups using drawing as a descriptive and imaginative medium for expression. As with all of our practitioners, he can apply his specialism to a range of topics throughout the curriculum. His regular workshop, Drawing in Action links with the QCA unit 6A People in action, exploring ways to successfully describe movement in visual art through role play, discussion and large scale collaborative drawing.
KEEPING YOU UP TO DATE
Our education newsletter has expanded over the last couple of years, with the gradual addition of new workshops, to the point where it is now bursting at the seams with written information. Our next newsletter, due out in January is planned to have significantly less text content so we can include more images, features and feedback and make greater use of the website www.the-ropewalk.co.uk for workshop, facility and booking information. As always, we are happy to answer any queries you put to us by phone or email and can arrange a visit so you can see our facilities before booking your trip.
Look out for the next instalment of Education e-News which will be issued in a few weeks. In the meantime if there’s anything you’d like to discuss with us or contribute for circulation regarding education please do get in touch.
With best wishes from The Ropewalk,
Ellie Collins
Education Officer
ellie@the-ropewalk.co.uk
The Ropewalk
Maltkiln Road
Barton upon Humber
North Lincolnshire
DN18 5JT
