Every pupil and member of staff has time to be creative

Barrow Hill Junior School wins a prestigious Drawing Inspiration Award for a top 2008 Big Draw event.

Barrow Hill Junior School and event organiser, Arwen Roberts, Art Coordinator, will receive a prestigious Drawing Inspiration Award from the Campaign for Drawing for the successful event they created for The Big Draw 2008. Last October, 1,250 events took place in 1,100 venues across the UK. Out of all these Big Draw programmes, Barrow Hill Junior School won a Runner Up award for The Living Picture.

For a week, classes took part in a broad range of drawing activities, using different media to bridge the gap between science and art, and to link to their Modern Foreign Languages studies in Italian. Each year group had a different focus for creating and illustrating their own books – some individually, and some in groups. Year 3 made collaged concertina books after studying Eric Carle’s stories; Year 4 constructed pop-up books, Year 5 painted the view from Primrose Hill in watercolours, representing the four seasons; Year 6 animated their drawings. Some activities were based on books and others introduced particular skills and techniques. Members of the school community shared their creativity, enthusiasm and skills by leading workshops. Staff offered ideas and support, enabling all the children to be creative, and to enjoy drawing, talks and a cross-curricular workshop using recycled materials.

At The British Museum On 30 March Barrow Hill Junior School will receive its Award and a commemorative certificate designed by leading illustrator and Campaign patron, Quentin Blake. The winning event will be illustrated in the Campaign’s new book, sent to thousands of museums, galleries, schools, heritage and community venues as inspiration for the Campaign’s tenth birthday Big Draw in October 2009.

The Big Draw sweeps the UK each October with a drawing bonanza, involving an estimated 350,000 people in exciting, and often unusual, creative activities. Children, parents, grandparents, conservationists, designers, artists, cartoonists and scientists meet in venues ranging from castles to shopping centres, national galleries to village halls, libraries to hospitals, universities to nature reserves – to draw with charcoal, paint, light, even skateboards and robots!

Sue Grayson Ford, Campaign Director, comments “ Barrow Hill Junior School fully demonstrated the Big Draw’s aims of bringing people together, engaging them creatively and supporting active learning – all through drawing. I am amazed how organisers constantly expand the boundaries of drawing by bringing vast amounts of enthusiasm and imagination to their events.”