Evaluation

Final Evaluation

When I was given the brief for this community project, I was hoping to be put into the group visiting the hospice as I wanted to take part in a community group that would result in a humbling experience. Looking back on how much my community group has done and the school that we worked with, I couldn't be happier. I've enjoyed working at Redgates so much and it's been such an amazing and humbling experience. When we found out that the previous organisation pulled out it was upsetting at first but I'm grateful for the group I got put in as well instantly started working on finding a new one in which we did and I'm so happy it was Redgates. I feel like throughout this project, I've learnt so much more than I would've if I was put in a different community group. I've learnt how to conduct a proposal, I've learnt how to work with children with different abilities and learning difficulties, I've learn more about sign language and cognitive age and I've also learnt how to plan and change around innovative ideas etc.

This project has been really humbling and I feel I've come a really long way from how I felt in the beginning. I was worried as at first since we didn't have an organisation to work with but once we got the ball rolling it became more enjoyable. I feel like it would've been even better if things were changed such as if we conducted two workshops instead of one just so that it would be easier to evaluate what works well and what doesn't. Also things such as having more opportunities to bond with the kids although they got used to us a lot easier. I also think that things would've been better if we bonded with the teachers and teaching assistants as I feel there was a lack of communication between us and them as on the workshop day, they seemed like they didn't know what we had planned to teach the children and as it got a bit messy, one of them weren't happy with the session due to the mess, so I do think things would've been a lot better if the communication between us as students and the teaching assistants was stronger. More time is another thing I feel was needed as they are learning disability, it was really hard to convey the message of drawing to the kids in just one session without breaking routine or schedules as they work at cognitive ages, so that alone was hard to communicate. Other than that, things went really well. I feel that going to observe classes before teaching a session was really helpful as we got to see how the kids work and what they can and can't do and this played a massive role when planning ideas and proposals as we had to take many things into consideration, and I feel observing classes beforehand was really beneficial.

Throughout this whole project, thankfully we haven't received bad feedback and I'm really happy with that as I feel all the preparation that me and Maisie carried out for Class 9 such as looking at research on cognitive ages and planning the workshops around that to suit the children and things such as trying out the activities before teaching the class to see what worked well and really benefitted us when it came to teaching the class. This is the feedback we received quoted from a previous blog post:

• One by one - she advised us that as the workshops can get really messy, which is great, she gave us the advice that if we wanted to keep things a bit more clean, we should get a student to take part one by one to keep things more controlled. I thought about doing this, but after observing the art class last time, the children get restless really easy and behavioural issues start to show and I wanted to avoid that, but I will still take this into consideration if there is a next time.
• Health and Safety - To take health and safety into consideration more, especially for my workshop as the paint was really slippery and the students did slip a lot but thankfully no injuries occurred. I will definitely look into health and safety a lot more as I only looked into what was safe for them and what wasn't in terms of materials and not surrounding. 
• Enthusiastic - She said I interacted with the children well and enforced the enthusiastic language with them well so like emphasising the tone of voice and really engaging well with them. This is something I took into consideration massively as after observing the classes earlier on in the year, I saw that they respond well when spoken to enthusiastically so I'm happy I was able to give off that good energy.

Receiving feedback like this made the experience even more worthwhile as the children thoroughly enjoyed the workshops and it makes me feel like I've done something or created a memory that will last forever with them and with me also.

Working with Redgate is a completely different experience than if I was to work with the Selhurst Children Centre for example. Although both organisations are working with children, there are so many different things to consider such as health and safety rules would be different slightly as both sets of children work at different abilities and communication would be completely different. Comparing the two makes me wonder what would my experience be like if I worked with a different community group and it just makes me value the experience even more.

My final thoughts on this whole project is that I'm extremely happy and proud of my group because although we were a group, we had to be split into small groups of two and a four as the children couldn't handle all of us in one classroom. A hiccup like that and the fact we found this school completely ourselves, enforces how hard we've worked. I also think that for working with people that aren't in our friendship groups, we all did really well and communication was good throughout the whole project. I feel like for all of us, Redgate School has left a really nice impression on us and hopefully we've left a really good impression on them. I'm so happy with the result of my workshop and surprised at how well it went as I only conducted one due to time. All in all, this experience has been amazing and I could not be happier with the result.

Outsider Art - Turning the Art World Inside Out

Looking back on this project, I can see it really closely links to the Outsider Art Documentary showed to us earlier in the community project. The term outsider art was created by the art critic Roger Cardinal in 1972 as an english synonym for art brut, which was created by French Artist Jean Dubuffet. The word was used to describe art created 'outside the boundaries of official culture'. Dubuffet focused on art made by those on the outside of the established art scene such as children and patients of psychiatric hospitals. However, the english term 'outsider art' is often applied to include self taught or naive art makers who were never institutionalised, so those who have little to no contact with the mainstream art world.

I really enjoyed the documentary as it really opened my eyes to appreciating art a lot more. I do feel that the documentary was a little biased a i feel it was appreciating people who haven't attended art school a bit more but that's fine as it was showcasing the talents of those who haven't been institutionalised which is great. I really liked how they went to asylums and found people with disabilities or psychological problems and appreciated the art they created as they are shunned from the society and it was nice to seem them presented in a positive light.

I feel this closely links to my community group, Reigate School as they are children with learning disabilities and my aim was to break the boundaries of drawing by creating art in different ways still linking to drawing.  After the success of the workshop, some of the children really did produce some really nice work and I guess it would be viewed as outsider art as they are children that suffer from learning disabilities. I feel that it really did link closely and I'm happy i was given the chance to watch that documentary as I feel it prepared me for my community group.

Examples of Outsider Art

The Workshop!

15/07/2016

Today we conducted the workshop and surprisingly it went really really well. The students engaged and participated well, which made teaching the class a lot easier. Me and Maisie split the two activities between us and made the class swap groups so that everyone gets a chance to experience the both activities.

Maisie conducted the workshop 'Throwing Paint' which is when we filled up water balloons with poster paint which is non toxic and our aim was for the students to throw the balloons onto sheets of paper to create interesting shapes and patterns. I conducted the workshop 'Drawing with the body' which is using crayons and paint to draw and create marks using different parts of the body such as feet, elbows etc.

We arrived at 8:45 am to give ourselves are 45 mins preparation time as the students come in at around 9:30am. The school thankfully already had all of our materials set out for us so all we had to do was fill the water balloons and tape the paper into place. I helped Maisie fill up some water balloons before going to set up my activity. I then went to set up and used 4 coloured trays to fill up the yellow, red/orange, blue and green paint. I purposely placed the paint in a tray that's the opposite colour to help make things more exciting and to get the children to think a bit more. I placed around two sheets of huge paper down and set the trays in place whilst the students were doing their morning activity as it had passed 9:30 and the students started class whilst we were still setting up.

I finished setting up before Maisie as she was still outside setting up. Before splitting the class into two groups of four, I introduced myself and again and explained what we'd be doing this morning. I was nervous at first to present myself as I had to do it alone because Maisie wasn't quite ready yet, but the teachers helped out massively as they translated what I was saying into sign language, making it easier for the kids to understand.

The Workshop
After introducing myself, the teachers split the class into two for us to make things easier and I then took the students to the are where we would be creating the artwork. Due to time, as the students can only work for half an hour tops, I didn't demonstrate fully but simply got straight into it. I showed the kids what to do by doing it the same time as them. I dipped my feet into paint and made marks onto the large sheet. The students kind of followed my lead and caught on really quickly. I would personally say that the workshop was a success as one of the students whose really sensory and doesn't participate well, joined in and made himself feel really included and the teacher said she was really happy that he took part and engaged really well. The students produced some really nice work, I am still yet to receive photographs as for confidentiality purposes, the teachers had to take pictures as faces and names are not allowed to be shown/seen. The workshop got incredibly messy and I felt so bad but I did my best to clear up once the session was over. I cleared up when the teachers went to shower the kids. As for swapping over the two groups, both groups participated well and I feel the second group I taught, enjoyed it a lot more as they're sensory students. All in all, I'd say the workshop was a success and I couldn't be happier with the result.

Feedback
Most of the feedback I received was positive which I was really happy about. The art director gave us good feedback and also feedback that would benefit us in the future:

• One by one - she advised us that as the workshops can get really messy, which is great, she gave us the advice that if we wanted to keep things a bit more clean, we should get a student to take part one by one to keep things more controlled. I thought about doing this, but after observing the art class last time, the children get restless really easy and behavioural issues start to show and I wanted to avoid that, but I will still take this into consideration if there is a next time.
• Health and Safety - To take health and safety into consideration more, especially for my workshop as the paint was really slippery and the students did slip a lot but thankfully no injuries occurred. I will definitely look into health and safety a lot more as I only looked into what was safe for them and what wasn't in terms of materials and not surrounding. 
• Enthusiastic - She said I interacted with the children well and enforced the enthusiastic language with them well so like emphasising the tone of voice and really engaging well with them. This is something I took into consideration massively as after observing the classes earlier on in the year, I saw that they respond well when spoken to enthusiastically so I'm happy I was able to give off that good energy.

Here are the few pictures of some of the work produced as I'm still waiting for the rest of the pictures to be sent.

Final Ideas

12/07/2016

Today, Me and Maisie finalised ideas completely and posted them on the community, ready for them to be posted on the community. After the feedback from the art director, we cut down on ideas and came to two final ones that would be suitable for the more sensory students and higher ability students.

The two final ideas are:

• Drawing with the Body
• Throwing Paint

Quoted from proposal:

Drawing with the body -
Before seeing them, we would prepare water balloons that are filled with paint and bring them to the school. We would then lay paper on the ground in the garden space- which some students might enjoy to help us with- and then we give the balloons to the students and they throw them at the paper. The balloons would pop when they hit the paper and the paint will splash out making a mark (since it is filled with a liquid substance, the balloon will not make a loud noise, but if you are concerned we are happy to test out the volume of the pop). We then thought again that maybe we could edit the image a little afterwards and take some of the paint splatters and turn them into little people or animals etc.

Throwing Paint - 

Drawing with the body would consist with a variety of different activities, like dipping hands and feet in paint and then running over paper and making marks on it, or tapping pencils or crayons to their elbows or feet (or just anywhere really), and then the students making marks using body parts other than just their hands. They could also draw around some of their legs or arms, or maybe even the whole person to create negative silhouettes.

We also included the materials needed and since the school is quite equipped already we didn't have to include pricing.

Materials

As for materials, we will need paint and crayons and huge sheets of paper:

Paint

• 2 bottles of each colour
• Red
• Green
• Blue
• Yellow

Crayons

• Red
• Blue
• Yellow
• Green

We chose to use 2 bottles of each colour for the class as me and maisie are going to split the class into two groups, so a bottle for each colour in each group. The activities are going to get quite messy so hopefully the paint is enough, even if so, the school said they are more than happy to get more materials for us.

So this is the plan for our workshops with materials included. Our workshop is on Friday (15/07/2016) and we will be arriving at the school at 8:45am to give us enough time to prepare for the session.

The Proposal

08/07/2016

Today we went to Redgate in the morning to finally propose our ideas to the Art Director. We arrived around 9am to propose ideas. We then went to a separate room to give our ideas to her. The meeting didn't last very long, Class 4 presented their ideas first and in Class 4 is Josh, Alyssa, Anna and Dwayne. Me and Maisie (Class 9) presented next and we created another ideas sheet explaining our ideas more in depth. We gave a handout as we presented as last time from the school proposal, we saw this worked best. The Art Director seemed to really like our ideas and she said the ideas really suited the children. 

We received some feedback which discussed what was hard for the students to participate in and what was more suitable for them. These are the notes I took down for feedback:

• Favourite things activity is a bit hard.
• Sensory - hand over hand - they have sensory boxes for activities that may be a bit more sensory and suited to those children.
• Stencils - for higher ability / lower ability suited for mark making activity.
• Body Awareness is a really important thing this term so drawing with the body is a really good activity to in-cooperate with that theme.
• Email her by Wednesday with finalised Ideas

 With this feedback, Me and Maisie decided that we will go back to school and on the Tuesday lesson, finalise ideas and materials so that it's ready to be emailed to the art director by Wednesday 13th. These are the next steps for us. 

I also prepared a powerpoint the night before but unfortunately didn't get the chance to bring it up on the projector since it wasn't set up but this is what it looked like:

   

  

  

  

 

Ideas and Arts Council Proposals

30/06/2016

Today me and Maisie looked at ideas that we had come up with on the 17/06/2016 and added descriptions to them to help break down the ideas clearer so that when we propose them, our ideas will be clear.

We started off by brainstorming ideas and we came up with a mind map full of ideas.



Our ideas were:

• Drawing their favourite things - have them make marks on a piece of paper about how their favourite things make them feel - then we can draw over their marks a simple line drawing of what the thing actually was.
• Modelling - pressing things into clay and painting or creating sculpture like favourite animals etc. 
• Crayon Resist - draw in white crayons and then paint over.
• Throwing Paint - throw paint at a large plain paper then we draw into the shapes made to make it into something else.
• Rubbings - newsprint and crayons on textures.
• Drawing with the body - feet in paint and using body to create marks.
• Big Stencils - all get together and fill in the stencil with everything they can - paint, pom poms, tissue paper, collage, crayons etc.
• Collage - pre-cut images, then they stick them down however they please to create an image.
• Dot-to-dot - making dot-to-dots more interesting.

These were the first drafts of ideas that we first came up with. A lot of them fit well with the students such as the paint activities and rubbings as a lot of the students are sensory so exploring with different textures and materials will be good for them.

The next step is to propose these ideas to Carmen, the art director at Redgate School.

Preparation for the Real Proposal 
Even though we had the prep proposal in front of our teachers for extra help, we also looked at Art Councils and how to conduct and what's included in an art proposal. Our tutors showed us personal proposals that they have done which helped out a lot. Here is the information I gathered:

Arts Council England - organisations that are funded by the government:

• Welcome Trust
• Jerwood Charitable 
• Princes Trust
• Lottery Trust
• The Elephant Trust
• Leverhulme Trust
• ArtsQuest
• Welcome Europe
• Local Councils
• Art Wales
• Paul Hamlin Foundation
• The Tate
• Art and Humanities Research Councils

What is included in an Art Proposal:

• Previous Experience
• What your plan is (the logistics)
• The impact and what will it be?
• Audience, who you'll work with
• Be professional
• Insurance for Arts Practise
• Costs
• What problems may occur (Risk Assessment)
• Title of proposed project and define
• Time Scales
• Materials
• Roles, Team Members
• Past Examples of Work
• Closing Statements

Proposal Lesson

28/06/2016

On Tuseday, my group conducted a propasal in front of our teachers that included all of our ideas as a group (individual classes) and included pricing and costs for the activities. 

The proposal did last quite long, I think it lasted for half an hour which is really long and that was one the criticisms we received. I think the reason for why it was so long is because we're split into classrooms and each class has students with different levels of abilities and it's a lot of information to come back and discuss with everyone else.

Me and Maisie both made our own slides for Class 9 as our class works differently to the others. The information on our slides included possible activities that we were thinking of carrying out, the materials and general information about our class and risk assessments. The overall feedback for our proposal was generally good feedback. They commented that they were impressed that we provided a handout (physical copy) for them to look through and how we spoke really clearly and the presentation was presented well.

Although the feedback was generally positive, we did receive some feedback on things we had to work on for the future professional proposal. We got given the feedback that we should've broken down our presentation more as we included a huge amount of information as each class works at different abilities. We noted this and in the future, we'll definitely take this into consideration. We also got given the feedback that we should've made the presentation more visually pleasing as the powerpoint was quite standard and we didn't include images as we aren't allowed to photograph the children for various reasons.

Other than that, majority of the proposal went really well and all in all, we received more positive feedback than negative which was nice. Down below are the screenshots of me and Maisie's class proposal and the closing statement in which I wrote to conclude the presentation.

      

Second Visit

24/06/2016

Today we visited the school again for another observational visit but this time Me and Maisie got more involved with the students and participated in their activities. It was honestly so much fun. I feel this visit allowed us to bond with the students a lot more. I started to get along with a few students just by dancing with them in the morning exercise session and by playing with them during snack time. On a Friday, I think they have a lesson called music therapy where they have a musician come in and they play around with on the instruments etc. This was great as it showed Class 9 are really bubbly and engage really well in active session. Me and Maisie saw that they are really active and based upon this, will come up with art session where everyone is active and is doing something. This visit was so much better than last time as I feel the students have gotten used to us and are now more willing to work with us. I really enjoyed spending time with them and I'm looking forward to conducting the sessions with Maisie. The next step is to start planning and conducting a proposal including our ideas.

First Stages and Progress..

17/06/2016

Today we got given more information about the children we'll be working with and their levels. Pictured below are me and Maisie's class which is class 9. Our class' levels vary from P3(ii) to P5.
One student is working at P3(ii) which means the begin to communicate intentionally and tend to seek attention through using eye contact, gestures or actions. They also participate in shared activities with less support needed. They can only hold concentration levels for a short period of time.

Two of our students are working at P4 which means they show some awareness of cause in a creative process. They tend to repeat an activity to have a similar effect and they show a lot of interest when using a range of tools and materials and taking part in familiar activities with some support. Majority of our class, with around 5 students are working at P5, which means that they handle or use tools and materials purposefully. They also able to choose materials and tools which are appropriate for the activity, for example, picking brushes or rolling pins for a painting activity.

On the other pages were past activities that they've tried out with the pupils. A lot of the activities are sensory and active which gives a great indication of what type of things the students like to participate in. I also noticed when looking through the documents that they usually produce quite large scale works, so I assume that every child takes part and is free hence the use of huge sheets of paper etc. That seems fun though, I did have some ideas revolving around the idea of producing large scale work. On the documents, I highlighted and annotated slightly information which I thought would be important such as their P levels and the activities they've done in the past and key words I thought would be of use.

The next stage is to arrange another visit for the school. Next Tuesday, we're going to come together as a group again and discuss ideas for sessions and hopefully trial out some ideas next Friday.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                
    

   

Meeting The Kids

14/06/2016

Today, we met the kids we'll be working with at Redgate. We observed a morning class so from about 9:30am to around 11:00am. The classes were quite short, maximum like half an hour as the kids tend to get really agitated if they're waiting or sitting for too long. This visit was really informative as me and Maisie have realised that this is going to be a lot harder than we thought. There is about 3 students I'll say that are working at low levels and are definitely less able, which means whatever ideas we come up with, we have to remember to take those students into consideration. Most of the students in our class don't really speak and a lot of them use Makaton Sign Language but I'm assuming that the staff will helps us out with that.

From observing, I've learnt that the kids are quite sensory and love to touch things and explore. The first icebreaker activity if you say, was dancing then we sat in a circle and read a book but the book had a lot of items and toys with it, which allowed the students to feel around and have fun. So, I think having those mini activities in the morning allow the kids to wind down a little bit and helps get them focused. I could tell that the kids are really used to routine and I wouldn't like to break that order so that's another thing we'll have to consider. I think keeping lessons under the half an hour limit is definitely a must as some of the students, from what I could see, were getting restless and behaviour started to come out such as being a bit violent eg- kicking, pinching, pulling etc and they started to get noisy and had to go out for a 'movement break' which is a short amount of time outside to let them calm down. The teacher did say she kept them sitting longer just so she can give us the best observation experience but they usually wouldn't sit for long.

The art activities they did today was that they watched a clip on Youtube of Tony Orrico creating live art with his body and pencils. They then did an activity where each student got the opportunity to mimic his live art by lying stomach flat on a wheeled skateboard thing and created the same style of art using coloured crayons. Choosing a colour was really important to them and this gave more of an idea of how the children work and the whole idea of routine and what they're familiar with doing each activity etc. It was really interactive and busy and I feel that's what the student accustom better to, like more active sessions/activities. This was really helpful as it gave an insight into what would work best with for the students.

So far, I'm still really looking forward to working with the students because even though they can let their behaviour come out, after watching today's class, I'm certain that the staff will most definitely be there to step in and help at any given opportunity which was really nice to see. The staff were welcoming and great to talk to, even one of them was a past student at Brit which was nice. I feel like I've built a small bond with about 2 students as one tapped me really nicely and encouraged me to join in with the reading activity in which they used props and actions to tell the story. Another student came up to me and placed his foot on my lap, asking to tie his shoelaces, he's non verbal (I think) so he speaks using sign(makaton) or through using actions. I happily tied his shoelaces and let him join his friends after. Honestly, I was so touched, I initially thought that being new faces they're not used to, might be a bit of an issue as they're quite sensitive at times, but no they were surprisingly welcoming which was really heartwarming. A student even waved goodbye! How cute.

We also got given a tour of the art department and the school seemed to be quite equipped with art supplies eg-  non toxic paint as a lot of the students tend to show things in their mouths as their cognitive developing age is from around 3 months to 2 years despite their real ages being around 7/8. This was great to see as it means we don't have to worry about supplies so much.

Overall, the visit was very eye opening and beneficial as me and Maisie both learnt a lot about our class and how they work, which will most definitely help us decide how to conduct activities and will help us come up with them. We also asked the teacher for their abilities list and what level they work at referring to art activities. She said she is more than happy to forward it via email but cannot include the names of the students due to safety reasons etc which is understandable. I definitely feel this will be a humbling experience and I'm really hoping that an amazing bond is created between our class. Maisie and I.

Visiting the School

10/06/2016

Liberty managed to get us an appointment today to meet up with the Deputy Headteacher today at 10am at the school, Redgate. We met up at 9am near East Croydon Station and made our way to school. 8/10 of us showed up which was good but inconvenient as we were meeting the headteacher and it would've been preferred if she met all 10 of us.

We prepared questions to ask before getting there while we waited in Cafe Nero for latecomers:
1) What we can and can't do?
2) How long are the session(s)?
3) How many classes will we be working with? 
4) Rotating workshops or specific workshops for the classroom?
5) What time of day would we do the workshops?
6) What's the best date?
7) Anything we need to consider?
8) What do the students enjoy?
9) What kinds of learning difficulties?
10) How could we communicate best with the students?
11) Has she got any concerns or ideas?
12) Extra information from meeting

We then met up with Melissa, the headteacher and the head of the art department/activities but I can't remember her name. The meeting lasted for about half an hour and we got to walk through the school a little bit and it's really nice and huge, the size I wasn't expecting. After the meeting, a lot of the questions asked were answered which is good. Here are the answers: 

What we can and can't do?
- we aren't limited so we can do a lot and are free what most ideas we will just have to run it through and check that it will be okay with the school.  

How long are the session(s)?
- longest half an hour 

How many classes will we be working with? 
- in pairs so around 4 classes in the middle school department I think she said years 3 and 4

Rotating workshops or specific workshops for the classroom?
- decided on each pair sticking with one class through the whole thing and working with one class, so that means when we find out the different abilities of the pupils we can revolve our workshops on what kind of thing they are able to do.

What time of day would we do the workshops?
-Melissa did say any part of the day but the best thing to do is the morning so that we are there when they start and don't disrupt their day as routine is very important.

What's the best date?
- they were very flexible with dates except school trips but our next visit is Tuesday 14th June where we will just observe the lesson, see how they work and get to know the students.

Anything we need to consider?
- as the pupils have special needs they can kick, punch and bite.

What do the student enjoy?
- they are very visual and also would involve lots of movement.

What kinds of learning difficulties?
- autism, all round severe learning difficulties in general, meaning their cognitive developing age is around 3months - 2 years old but their actual ages are around 7-9 years old.

How could we communicate best with the students?
-many students are non-verbal so lots of pictures and signs and also simple sign language which I can't remember what it was called.

Has she got any concerns or ideas?
- same with the things we need to consider really, just to be aware and also said about movement!

Extra information from meeting:
- we can do more that one session if we wanted to as we might need to do more as each session is only half an hour.
- 8 children in each class same age but different abilities which she will send an email to us for which we should consider our activities as there will be a range.
- is we need any signs or symbols printed out we can email them to her and she will sort it out for us.
- if we use any equipment, it needs to be non-toxic as they like to put everything in their mouths
- it is more about the process and experience the children have with doing art rather than the outcome. 

After the meeting, we sat in a park and decided on pairs for each class:

• Mia and Ellie
• Florrie and Liberty
• Me(Jamila) and Maisie 
• Dwayne and Josh

As Alyssa and Anna didn't turn up, I assume they'll be a pair, I'm not too sure what will happen with them or the arrangements of classes with them. Other than that, I think the meeting went really well. The school seem really interested and excited to work with us and the feeling is mutual. I am really excited to work with the kids, although it will be difficult as a lot of the students are non verbal and working at low abilities, it will be difficult but I'm really looking forward to it. I feel it'll be a humbling experience.

On Tuesday, we are going back to Redgate to observe a class to see how the students work and to monitor their abilities to help us base workshops around their skills and attention spans etc.

Finding a Placement | Group E

07/06/2016

Finding A Placement

Today, we got given our community brief and were put in our groups. There are 5 groups within our art strand and each group has been allocated a placement to carry out the project. The organisations taking part are The Selhurst Children Centre, The Crescent Primary School in Selhurst, Age Concern in Thornton Heath, St Christopher's Hospice and The Valance - Seven Oaks.

The group I was put in was originally meant to work with The Valance, Seven Oaks School which works with disabled children/people. Unfortunately, the school was no longer able to work with us. So today, me and my group spent the time looking for other organisations and schools that we could potentially work with for the community project. We created a google plus page where all of us can share information on what we have found, regarding organisations and for further use such as sharing pictures etc. 

My group is: Me, Florrie, Liberty, Dwayne, Josh, Maisie, Ellie, Mia, Alyssa and Anna and Claire is the teacher supervising us.

The photos above give more of an insight on how we share information and the organisations we found. Liberty then emailed a bunch of these organisations. A couple got back to us saying unfortunately they can't take us on and some places we are still waiting for a reply. Luckily, a school called Redgate which provide education for pupils with severe earning difficulties, profound and multiple learning difficulties and autism from ages 4-11, seemed really interested in working with us and the deputy head teacher we contacted replied to emails fast and even brought up the offer to meet up and discuss further. We exchanged contact with her too. So at the moment, my group is at the point where we are waiting for a definite answer whether we can work with the school or not. 

We haven't yet assigned group roles as not everyone in my group was in today. Many of them had university open days so didn't attend school for that reason. On Friday, majority of my group will be in and we will assign group roles and hopefully by Friday we'll have a definite answer.

Room 13

I also looked at organisations such as Room 13 for individual research as the work closely with children to help enforce art even more:

 
I feel like looking at Room 13 helped a lot as they offer workshops where young people and artists can engage with different sectors of society. They also run art studios in schools and community settings worldwide. I just thought looking at this before the project starts will help give an insight for what's to come.