Bryn Celynnog - Year 7

Bryn Celynnog

I was sad to leave Heronsbridge but it was now time to move onto what I had set out to do, go onto secondary schools! My first placement was in a high school called Bryn Celynnog in Beddau, South Wales. I was to be here for 12 weeks. There was a lot more added pressure now with assignments going on and of course teaching an older age bracket! I have just finished my placement and Bryn and I can honestly say I really enjoyed it, it was very stressful at time but as equally enjoyable and rewarding.

During my time at Bryn I taught ten hours a week across a four day period. I taught four year 7 classes (KS3), two year 8 classes (KS3), one year 9 class (KS4), three year 10 classes (KS4), and gave a few one on one Photoshop tutorials to years 12 and 13 (KS5).

This page will showcase the work of my year 7 classes.

For three of my year 7 classes it was all about experimenting with new media's. The scheme of work already put in place by the school was learners trying out different materials whilst copying different artists work. I wanted to make this project more 'my own', therefore every two weeks learners would use a material they may have not used before whilst looking at four different Welsh artists. I wanted there to be a strong link to Curriculum Cymraeg and I thought this to be the best way of doing this.

In the first two weeks learners looked at the works of Karen Pearce, a Welsh landscape artist. Learners were given a choice of two of her paintings they could copy using watercolours. Learners had not used watercolours before and certainly had never used watercolour paper. I drew blank squares onto some watercolour paper so the learners could begin. Learners placed down a view finder onto Karen Pearce's work to narrow down the area they were looking at.

 

These are the two Karen Pearce painting the learners were looking at during this two week task.

 

In the second artist study, learners switched materials and artist. They used the same technique but with oil pastels this time and were looking at the Welsh artist Mansel Lewis. Again not many of the learners had used oil pastels before, all had used the chalk pastels but not the oil based ones. As the weeks progressed the paintings did get harder, as I wanted to challenge the learners! At the start and end of each week there were literacy tasks going on to help develop this skill.

 

 

 

These are the two Mansel Lewis paintings learners were looking at in the third and fourth week of the formal elements project.

 

 

For the third artist study learners were using acrylic paints, however they were only given the primary colours on their palettes. This made them have to think more about the colours they were using and the colours they needed to mix to make certain colours. The artist they were looking at for the acrylic paints weeks was Gwyn Roberts, another Welsh landscape artist. His work was a lot more angular than the artists looked at in previous weeks, therefore this was a good way of bringing in numeracy into the lessons. Learners had to think a lot more about scale. The paintings they used are pictured above.

 

 

For the fourth and final artist study learners were looking at the works of Welsh artist Nicola J Davies, and would be using an ink and stick technique. This was something none of the learners had used before, the outcome was different to all of the other studies they had done so far. The effect would have a lot of lines in it, all learners really enjoyed this technique and the outcomes were brilliant and really effective! Learners were simply given a cocktail stick and a pot of ink to use for this task. Above are the Nicola J Davies paintings the learners used, as you can see they are quite a bit more detailed than the previous paintings looked at.

 

 

Below are the photographs taken during the formal elements year 7 project. It was quite difficult to take the photo's as I had to always make myself available for help to the class.

 

 

 

I had some really talented year 7 learners! There was not one child that did not want to experiment with artists and materials.

 

The most successful study was the ink and stick one, learners liked the effect it gave. The least successful was probably the acrylic study, learners were rushing this task by applying the paint too thick and not enough detail.

 

Along the weeks learners were learning new formal elements words each week that they would have to use at the start and end of each lesson. I could see a massive improvement in the learners literacy from start to finish.

 

 

As a leaving gift to my year 7's I created this frame for them, in the frame was a selection of work they had produced across all three classes.