Arts Festival 2023

Arts Festival 2023 

This year our arts theme has been the environment and climate change. The children have focussed particularly on this significance and importance of bees and pollinators in term 6. 

Each year group has had opportunity to discover and learn about bees, pollinators and biodiversity through the arts. Reception, Y1, Y5 and Y6 have created beautiful visual artworks. Y2 and Y4 have created lyrical bee poetry and Y3 have created wonderful music scores and audio work. 

Year R – Collaborative printed and collaged bees 

There has been a real BUZZ in reception this term as we have been learning about mini-beasts and enjoyed finding out about bees and where they live. The children noticed a hive is made up of lots of hexagonal shapes and chose to use their cutting and sticking skills to make hexagonal shapes to use as stamps. These stamps were dipped into yellow and black paint to decorate paper. These colourful prints were then combined to make the head thorax and abdomen of our bees. The children then used their knowledge to create other parts of the bee, bending wire and cellophane for sets of wings, card for legs and paper for antennae. 

Year 1 – James Rizzi inspired bees 

This term Y1 have been exploring artwork by the artist James Rizzi. We learnt that he uses bright colours and felt tip pens in his work. He also takes real city sky lines and recreates them in a pop art style. This is what we sought to replicate when producing our bees. Taking inspiration from Rizzi’s work we added a black outline to our bees and we used our existing knowledge of collagraphy to print a night and day background. We used different textured materials such as bubble wrap, to create our collagraph prints. 

Year 2 – Bee Positive Poems 

In Y2 we used our poetry skills to write ‘bee inspired’ poems. We began by researching facts about bees, their habitat, adaption and diet. Did you know bees flap their wings 200 times a second? We used a range of techniques such as personification, repetition and alliteration. We even tried our hand at Haikus! We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. 

Year 3 – Musical Composition 

This term Y3 have been learning the recorder.  ‘Bees in Nature’ is a composition structured in three sections using five recorder notes. It begins and ends with the natural sounds of bees. In section one, the recorders play the main melody, with a second melody echoed on clarinet. In section two, the sound of the bees buzzing is reproduced on a variety of percussion instruments. In section three, the sound of running water (piano) is combined with the main and second melodies. The composition ends with ‘buzzing sounds’ produced by only the mouthpieces of the recorder and clarinet, then followed by the natural sounds of bees.  

Please use this link to listen to the fantastic Y3 musical compositions: 

Bee Video for Exhibition 

Year 4 - Bee Poetry 

With this year’s focus being the environment and climate change, Y4 have created some fabulous poems about bees. Before drafting their poems, Y4 did some research to find out about bees. They found out about different types of bee; why bees are so important as pollinators; what the world would be like without them and what they do throughout their lives. The children then drafted their poems using a variety of poetic devices before editing them and finally performing them individually and in groups. 

Year 5 – British Meadows in mixed media 

Year 5 have created this beautiful collaborative mixed media artwork using paint and textiles. The aim of the project was to highlight how important our British meadows are for wildlife, especially bees and other pollinators. The children created this artwork in stages. They began the project revisiting knowledge and skills learnt in term 1, where we investigated colour mixing, tints, tones and shades. The children were able to use this knowledge to create the stunning grass backgrounds seen in this artwork. The children also enjoyed learning about Monet, impressionism and the painting techniques that the impressionist artists used to create their paintings – quick, fast dashes and dabs of colour. Next, the children use observational skills to look at British wildflowers in detail before recreating these in textiles. The children were able to use their knowledge and understanding of collage having looked at Matisse’s papercuts and Kurt Schwitters in term 5. The artwork includes fabric bumblebees, adding the final flourish to this stunning piece. 

Year 6 – Abstract Bees 

Year 6 have created these beautiful abstract mixed media bees using inks, paint, tissue paper, fabric and other materials. This project taught our year 6 children all about sketchbooks, observational drawing, mixed media collage and contemporary art. They were able to consolidate their learning to make a final piece of artwork to highlight the importance of British meadows for wildlife, especially bees and other pollinators. Over the course of the project, year 6 used their sketch books to record and develop their ideas, as well as make detail observational drawings. They were able to combine all of what they have learned throughout their art curriculum to develop these stunning final artworks. 

Year 6 STEAM LED Bees  

Children worked in groups to construct a circuit to illuminate an LED, overcoming challenges such as connecting cells and ensuring current flowed the correct way across the diode. They created bees from dolly pegs and cotton wool bound by pipe cleaners; the LED was incorporated to represent the stinger or proboscis of the bee. Decorative details such as stripes and wings were added by using pipe cleaners and wool. 

Our arts festival culminated in the Y6 musical ‘Once on this Island’. A story closely linked with the environment.  Our music specialist Miss Garrioch has worked with Y6 to produce this fantastic show. 

The arts ambassadors and creative club members have also spent the summer term creating posters, props, set designs and costumes for the musical which has created a lot of excitement around the school.  

We hope that all the children have enjoyed learning about and producing work based on this important theme.  

Please use the below links to view additional work created by our arts ambassadors and creative club members this year, connected to our arts theme.