Music, Art and Forest Schools

30/4/24

On Tuesday 30th 60 Year 2 Children from Kingshill Infant School visited St Joseph's In The Park to take part in different activities that developed their understanding and skills in Music, Art and Forest Schools. The children and staff from Kingshill were invited to stay for a hot lunch.

Working with children from the Years 1 and 2 at school the children undertook a music workshop led by our peripatetic music staff, Art - learning the skills of 'pointillism' to create a Aboriginal style hand print and using their Forest School skills to investigate which trees were growing in our woods using a leaf and twig identifier resources.

Aims

The aim of this visit was to support Kingshill Infants with their music curriculum - it was a need identified in their recent OfSTED Inspection. We added the the Forest School and Art session to the visit as this would allow our children to integrate and collaborate and also to ensure number allowed for high quality teaching across all three activities. Ensuring qualified staff were leading each activity ensured the enjoyment and success of the visit.

Background

Partnerships with local school have been running for a number of years - this was our first event with Kingshill Infant School. The need was identified through colleagues from both schools who were known to each other and during discussions about our Partnership program relationships were cemented and links between the school created.

How we could help Kingshill in this instance was to support them in delivering high quality music lessons. adding Forest School and Art activities allowed the children to experience working with children from St Joseph's In The Park and undertake activities that inspired and excited.

Resources

The success of the event was ensured by the availability of dedicated music staff, timetable scheduling, music equipment, art and Forest School equipment. The school hall, playground and woods were used for this event and the children and staff made use of the school dining room alongside our children. 8 St Joseph's In The Park staff - non teaching and teaching staff were directly involved in this event plus the administration and catering team. The school minibuses were used to collect and return the children and staff to Kingshill Infant School after lunch.

The event lasted for the whole morning and Kingshill were returned to their own school for the afternoon session.

Impact

The children and staff from Kingshill enjoyed the day, the Lead teacher emailed the following:

"We had a brilliant time, thank you so much for the opportunity. One of our children asked "How do I join?"

Pupil Involvement

There were 92 mixed gender children involved in the event - age ranges 5-7 years of age - (60 Year 2 children from Kingshill Infants and 32 Year 1and 2 from St Joseph's In The Park). 

Frequency

This was a one off event but others will be planned for in the Autumn term.