CLASSROOM AS STUDIO BLOG: Nadia Woodall, HLTA, Project Cohort, Year 4, Dawley CE Primary Academy 

When I was asked to join the program I instantly jumped at the chance to be involved in
the project. One of my passions as a practitioner is discovering ways to give all of our
learners (and staff!) a safe creative place to develop their own interests and talents in
ways that can support everyone’s individual learning needs. I wanted to explore how we
could do this alongside of, but definably differently, to our formal classroom teaching
and this project has enabled us to do exactly that.

How have you found working with your artist partner?
Working with Mark has been wonderful. His understanding of our school structure (and
limitations!) has meant that his ideas and suggestions have been really inspiring but
also practical to implement. The children have thoroughly enjoyed learning from and
working with him in the classroom. He is passionate, knowledgeable, calm and a
wonderful presence to have in school. Having Mark in class and involved in our planning
sessions have been so beneficial. Whether it’s been encouraging me to vocalise my own
ideas, researching and teaching new skills and practices to both our children and staff
or generally making us all smile and reminding us that Art is our time to play – our Art
offer has grown so organically over the course of the project and we can’t wait to get into
our Summer Term units.

How have you found taking part in learning cohort sessions?
The in person learning cohort sessions have been a highlight of my journey on the
program. Rob and Becky offered a wonderful balance of inspiration and counsel at both
sessions and it has been great to feel reassured that the ideas and thought processes I
have followed over the last 6 month are valid and worth exploring. The practical
elements of the training days were great fun and really thought provoking. I usually find
these kind of events quite overwhelming but I have felt really at ease at both sessions
and it’s been lovely to meet the other practitioners in the project as well as the brilliant
artists.

What have you enjoyed?
I am in a uniquely different position to the other practitioners on the program as I am not
based in my own class. As HLTA, I cover all classes across school with the planning
provided to me so it has been absolutely fantastic to develop our Art planning and feel
empowered to pitch ideas and make changes alongside the teachers. When I looked at
the module for collage in Year 4 my immediate reaction was that it was too formal, quite
restrictive and lacked opportunities for the children to be creative. Historically, many of
our Art units have been quite heavily worksheet/theory based and I was keen to try and
limit this as much as possible while still meeting key objectives within our Art and
Design curriculum.

What was a challenge?
As a small school our budget, or lack of, is always a challenge when trying to teach
practical subjects that require resources. We had lots of ideas about how we could
make our collage unit more engaging but all required resources we didn’t have in
school. In the end we developed a unit on junk modelling to balance cost with creativity.
We reached out to parents to ask for donations of cardboard boxes and the budget
allocated through the project enabled us to buy the other bits we needed, which we can
now accurately allocate for in future years.

What have been your moments of joy?
My biggest moment of joy was seeing our junk modelling idea quite literally come to life
in the classroom. The children were inspired, focused and engaged in every lesson and
were so proud of their creations. We have a diverse range of personalities and needs
within our cohort and to see them all taking ownership of their own ideas, resources and
practice was wonderful. By removing/moving the furniture in our classroom we
immediately saw a shift in how our pupils and staff chose to work (sitting/standing,
working alone/in groups or partners, staying in one place/moving around) which I
believe had a direct link to focus and engagement. Behaviour, mindset and the tone
across the class visibly improved during our Art lessons which was fantastic.

What are you hoping to achieve by the end of this academic year?
I am hoping to inspire both our staff and our children to think (and occasionally jump
out of!) the box when it comes to Art and Design at our school. We have already
reviewed our curriculum offer with our wonderful A&D Lead for our Summer term to
implement more playful and explorative practice across every class and I hope to see
this develop and grow organically as we gain more confidence and share our learning