Essendine Primary School, Westminster

Change, Mystery and Transformation 2008
Year 6: Classes Red and Blue

Essendine Primary School was inspired by John Craxton's Dark Landscape, and Simon Starling's Shedboatshed. Taking the themes of change, mystery and transformation from these works, the young people created their own imaginative stories. They explored various storytelling structures and techniques such as narration, characters, setting, body animation and tableau. In addition to this they created their own animations; learning to operate a camera and tripod they experimented with different animation techniques including the cutout technique used in the final films. The young people then decided which elements of their stories to animate and which to act.

For images, visit the Essendine Gallery »

Performances of the stories took place at Essendine and at Tate Britain on the VerbalEyes Family Day »

Teachers: Amy Baird, Sally Filby, Mary Kilcooley, Rebecca Power, Sarah Simmons and Mark Tomkins
Artist:: Ben Harmer, Tom Hillenbrand and Graham Naiken

"Both artists got the best out of the pupils and that was great to see." Mark Tomkins, Teacher

"I gained more of an appreciation for artistic approaches to learning and teaching." Sally Filby, Teacher