The Gift of Giving!

The Ignite programme is quite unique in its scope with residencies taking place the length and breadth of the Wakefield District and involving up to 20 schools. This stood out to me right from the beginning as a brilliant opportunity to share our creativity, ideas and stories with the wider community. And so I came up with the idea that as part of each residency young people will be invited to create special gifts to pass on to the next school in the chain; offering the opportunity to make a contribution to the wider world and feel connected to other young people.

The gifts may take the form of a drawing, a few words or an object collected that says something about the place you live in that you would like to share with others.  My aim is to work with teachers to develop this element of the project as an opportunity for communication between pupils and learning about different places and communities. So far we have made some collaborative gifts involving everyone making their contribution to a piece of art work. 

 

At Streethouse School we made a very tactile beautiful bird with every child in the school represented in hand-shaped feathers! One pupil when asked how he would feel to receive this gift said "I would feel honoured".  Students and staff at Oakfield Park School were certainly impressed and enjoyed exploring the different textures. 

'Birds on a Telephone Wire' 

Oakfield Park students made individual birds for their gift for the next school in the project, QEGS Junior School. This was inspired by one student who spent a lot of time investigating and interacting with others using a paper cup & String telephone. 

Keep checking this blog over the coming months to see what other wonderful gifts people make for each other to send across Wakefield, Pontefract, Castleford and many places in between!