MAD again

The annual arts festival at Waddesdon Manor has provided the venue for the second exhibition of A grade A level work from Bucks schools. It is an opportunity to show some of the extraordinary work being produced by our 6th form students.

Once again there was an outstanding entry from Chesham High school in the form of two massive cocks made from torn cardboard over a metal armature. This complemented the torso from plastic spoons which was exhibited last year and sold to Lord Rothschild.

However, several schools were unable to send work for the exhibition this year because moderation was still underway. It may be that there is a need to consider whether there is a better time and venue for this exhibition.

BATA or Bucks Art Teachers Association

We have been trying to establish an association for Bucks art teachers. This will enable them to be pro-active in managing and developing the support networks that can be so important at a time of far reaching change. The difficulty has not been the basic premise, which almost everyone accepts, but in taking that first step in establishing an infrastructure. We have been seeking to find a critical mass for this for almost 12 months now but at every meeting the numbers are just not high enough to give us confidence to proceed. However, at a meeting at Wadesdon Manor despite the relatively small numbers we agreed to proceed anyway. A brief constitution has been produced and circulated and no objections or amendments have been received. It does require the identification of officers or representatives at some stage but for the moment it was agreed to just begin and set up some meetings. So that is what will happen. There will be meetings in the north and south initiated by Chalfonts Community College and Waddesdon C of E School. In the meantime I will seek establish a comprehensive emailing list which can be used by the fledgling association.

NSEAD a new role

It is worth noting that the role of national subject associations has changed radically this year. In art the subject association is NSEAD. Traditionally the subject association has taken the role of subject champion and sometimes a trades union. However, as the key subject associations have now been commissioned to deliver the training for the new national curriculum their national role has changed. It suggests that they have taken on a much stronger partnership with national agencies and have a much more important strategic role.

This suggests that teachers should consider the benefits of becoming a member of their subject association. In art, membership of NSEAD will provide access to up to the minute news, advice, newsletters and a professional journal. It will also provide opportunities to contribute to the national debate.

The New Secondary Curriculum

It's always the way: you don't see an art adviser for years and then three come along together. It was good to welcome Dr John Steers and John Bowden to Bucks. They are the two national subject leaders for art and I have known and worked with them for the last two decades.

The art conference on Monday 21 April was important on a variety of levels. It was useful to bring into Bucks the national training programme. The key message of this is that we are moving away from a period of intense national prescription into a period where schools and teachers are being encouraged to take ownership of their curriulum and make it relevant to their own distinctive students, aspirations and context. In Bucks this will mean that the curriculum of a girls grammar school in Beaconsfield is likely to be very diferent to that of a mixed upper school in Aylesbury. The key resources, information and links from this event have been added to the Bucksgfl art website.

It was also good to have an opportunity for art teachers to meet and share experiences. In the next few years there will be many very significant changes to the educational landscape (diplomas, vocational education, new technologies, personalised learning, the new secondary curriculum, etc. etc.) and it will be important for teachers to be able to continue to be able to meet and share ideas. It was noted that in Bucks, as in many other Local Authorities, there is no longer an art adviser or consultant and that it will be harder to sustain the network of art teachers. It was agreed to develop an art teachers' forum to secure the networks. The forum will enable art teachers to take ownership of events such as the MAD art exhibitions. It will also enable art teachers in Bucks to sustain a working relationship with the Local Authority which will support their professional development.

A few art teachers will meet soon to create an initial constitution for the forum. This will be put to a meeting and hopefully adopted. It is encouraging that there is also likely to be an opportunity to sustain the relationship with John and John and NSEAD who will be pleased to provide further support for Bucks art teachers.

A Virtual Parents Meeting

Follow this link to see a recording of a virtual parents meeting. This is an online meeting set up by Greg Hodgson for parents of his GCSE students. Greg is talking about the digital art GCSE course he has set up at Chalfonts Community College. The course makes excellent use of the Bucks VLE (Moodle) which is free to all Bucks schools.

You will join the meeting about half way through. It is taking place Thursday evening at 7.30pm. Greg is talking from his home with a glass of wine and a standard broadband connection. A second teacher (Hannah) is also at work in the meeting, again from her home. You will hear Greg talking about the digital art course and how students use the VLE. He shows examples of students' work and how the VLE supports their learning and asessment. He not only provides information about the course, but also explores how parents might support their children.

You will see on the left hand side of the screen that about 24 families have logged in to the meeting. They use text to greet each other and to ask questions. Hannah is managing this part of the meeting and this allows Greg to concentrate on his presentation. You can hear Greg deciding to show the work of one student because her parents have joined the meeting. At the end of the meeting Greg picks up and answers some parents' questions.. Some families joined the meeting together, others joined separately as students logged on from their room. Perhaps 40 people were involved altogether. Other parents can watch the recording afterwards. The whole thing took about 30 minutes.

The parents did not need a training course they were just sent the URL and invited to log in at a particular time. the whole thing was done with domestic broadband. In Bucks all schools have access to this facility - free.

I find this absolutely fascinating, not least because to listen to Greg it sounds perfectly natural for him to be chatting to parents in this way. It changes my perception of how online meetings can be used. I had thought that it was important that there was full two way connectivity between all parties. But this often led to bandwidth problems and 45 minutes of texting 'I cant hear U' or 'is yr camera on?'. Greg demonstrates that it is easy to make a presentation to an audience, anywhere and that the audience can engage easily using text.

This meeting was between a couple of teachers and 24 families one evening. However, it not difficult to think of many other uses. Some of us are involved in developing ideas for the new Diploma's. At present there is much discussion of how students need to move to different venue's for different aspects of the courses. This use of online presentations may be useful.

I hope you find it as fascinating as I do.

There's no such thing as a free launch

It was good to be at the launch of the new secondary curriculum launched at Lords by Lord Adonis, Ken Boston, Mick Waters, Andrew Motion, Gareth Mills, some teachers and a few pupils. It was accompanied by an exhibition of art by one of our schools (Chalfonts Community College) which was why I was there. . Perhaps the important point is that we - that is various Bucks colleagues and I - have been working with Robin Widdowson (subject Officer at QCA) on various projects for the last couple of years and QCA felt that Bucks could be trusted to provide examples of high quality and innovative practice at, what for them, was a significant and risky public event. Greg should be congratulated for his work on this event and especially for presenting some of the innovative digital work that is being developed in Bucks.


However, our involvement with the KS3 launch goes a bit further than that as we have been working with QCA for over a year now. The new KS3 Art programme was developed by a relatively small group which included myself and another of our art teachers Marc Berrett of Waddesdon C of E. Last summer I was also asked to develop some teacher responses and case studies based on the programme of study and was able to include Waddesdon C of E, The Grange and Beaconsfield Upper in this process. In March (at the last minute) I was also asked to rewrite the art level descriptions to match the new KS programme of study for 2008. I am particularly pleased because we clearly identified creativity including originality,imagination and creative risk taking as a necessary aspect of art education - so another win for creativity and Bucks. I have posted the matrix that used to create the levels on the A4 (Art Advisers) website - in case you are interested.


I am, by nature, extremely self deprecating but it seems a good time to mention work we have done beyond KS3? Last year I managed a project to develop some assessment case studies for publication by QCA. I worked with three Bucks schools on this project developing case studies about assessment and transition - Ashmead school, Waddesdon C of E and tangentially Whitchurch school. These case studies are now published and available from QCA.

Bucks has also been involved in the GCSE review this year as I was asked by QCA to prepare the first draft of proposals for GCSE art subject criteria. Marc Berrett (Waddesdon C of E) and I were also at the main GCSE consultation where we worked on the art and design subject criteria (online consultation now open). Finally, I was also on the scrutiny panel for the new GCE syllabuses over Easter. So, one way or another this year, we have contributed to the national evolution of art and design in KS1, KS2, KS3, KS4, and 6th form and in piloting new media: in some of these cases quite significantly.


I mention all this simply because I am excited (and tired) and pleased to have been able to end this year with a record of success and want to note the contribution Bucks has made and that it has acquired a strong reputation nationally. I think there is also some clear momentum now which will sustain the future development of subject leadership in Bucks. Its important that we do recognise that we have in Bucks some really excellent work and practice and that in some areas we are taking a lead. I would also like to take this opportunity to thank those colleagues who have worked with me sharing expertise, excitement and enthusiasm for the work we do together.

It is also a good note to end on. In September my role will change as I have accepted the post of area adviser in the area office: north. But I will retain some strategic responsibility for art and design although this will become a much smaller part of my work. Next term we will need to explore some of the opportunities that are available to support art and design. We will explore the work of AST's; how art departments wish to use the Waddesdon Arts festival; how Specialist Schools might work together (as some already are) to take responsibility for subject leadership; how we can work with Creative Partnerships which is changing to provide more opportunities for Bucks schools to become involved; how we might work with the Montgomery Trust which has a sculpture park in Chalfonts St Giles (and I bet you did not know that). I will also try to sustain the Bucksgfl art website and probably the blog - and wild horses could not keep me away from some involvement with the MAD Waddesdon Festival which next year will be on the weekend of 28th 29th June 2008.

So still much to do but this will be the last bulletin when I should call myself 'County Art Adviser'. In the last 12 years I have circulated these art bulletins by post, fax, email and now blog (about 96 in all) - usually in an attempt to stay one step ahead of the corporate technology. I hope you have found some of them useful. Have a good summer.

Creative and innovative practice

Spent really exciting evening at a GCE, GCSE art exhibition at Chalfonts Community College. Above there is part of a students contextual study, all printed on cans which was a brilliant idea. The whole thing is set in an abstracted display cabinet (it relates to Pop Art). There was some excellent painting with real sensitivity and maturity in the use of the oil paint and some really excellent drawing and illustration and some very clever digital art installations.

The digital art work was particularly interesting as the school has pioneered a GCSE course in digital media (under the unendorsed art and design GCSE specification). There are now students at AS level with three years experience of digital work having completed the two year GCSE digital art course in KS4. You can get a sense of the work being done by looking at Ben's video blog on YouTube. It is genuinely intriguing and revealing. The video blog shows how the ideas developed, some of Bens references and the final animations (these were shown projected onto a very large gauze screen in a dark environment with loud music so the YouTube version is just an approximation of the actual installation). What is perhaps more important is that it demonstrates a genuine partnership between Ben and his teachers as Ben is encouraged to take risks and experiment with a medium and grammar which is demonstrably his own, rather than that of the school. So Ben is taking ownership of his own independent practice encouraged and supported by his teachers - it can only happen with trust on both sides.

As Stephen Heppell has said "all this has been changed by the ability of modern computers to allow expression in a wide variety of media: speech, sound and aural ambience, text as labels or prose, symbols, animation, music, video, diagrams and more. And all this can be individual or collaborative, in public or private, at school or (for many but not all) at home. Obviously this broadens the corridors through which learners might evidence their success", Stephen Heppell

The evidence of trust was evident in many other students' work as well. digital animations dealt with intensely moving and personal themes which could only have come about in an atmosphere of mutual respect between students and students, and between students and their teachers. In a sense it reminded me of the way that good drama is always predicated on genuine trust within the group which allows personal expression to be shared and celebrated. It is almost always a characteristic of work which is most exciting - where students are able to use their art to explore issues and ideas of personal significance to themselves and their lives.

As a postscript I have just posted a first video to YouTube. It is a short film made in partnership with the school about an introductory visit to Sweden to develop ideas for working with the artist and designer Andie Cowie. We intended to use the Chalfonts Community College VLE to explore the option of having an artist/designer from another country contribute to the VLE based course.