Case Studies
The Prince's Foundation for Children & the Arts - The Mary Rose School, Portsmouth
Children & the Arts was created by The Prince of Wales under the belief that the arts should be accessible to all children, and help them realise their aspirations.
Through its Start programme, the charity provides funding and support to cultural venues, to help make them accessible to younger generations by building partnerships with primary and secondary schools in their local area.
The Mary Rose School in Portsmouth is a school for pupils aged between two and 19 years-old who have a wide range of severe and complex learning difficulties.
In March 2010, aspex, a contemporary art gallery, housed in a former naval storehouse on Portmouth’s waterfront, wanted to include the Mary Rose School as one of its partnerships through Start.
The eight children in Penguin class at the school are in wheelchairs and have profound and multiple learning disabilities. Constant complete sensory input helps them to get the most out of life and their trips to aspex deliver particularly well against this need. The whole experience of being in the gallery is enormously valuable, they spend their time exploring the sights and sounds and textures of the exhibitions before going back to school with the workshop leader to work in one of their specialist rooms.
During their first workshop the artist and educator Effie Coe recorded sounds that they heard in the gallery, including parts of the exhibition, pupils’ vocalisations and even a drill. They also took photographs, taking the gallery back to school with them.
The collected sounds and images were put onto the Optibeam in the music room, an instrument that plays and projects sounds and images when light beams are broken, allowing the children to create a new exhibition of their own in a familiar space. During the second workshop the children went to an exhibition by Andy Harper which included a large suspended sphere painted with intricate organic forms. The children were able to get very close to this piece and their responses were enthusiastic. They all painted on acetate in response and back at school these images were projected on to the walls in the multi-sensory room, once more giving the children the chance to use their school environment and resources in new and exciting ways.
Creativity is central to the curriculum at Mary Rose and thanks to Start this has now been extended to include visits to an artistic venue. Prior to Start, visits to artistic venues were difficult, because of accessibility issues and staff not always being confident about the welcome that they would receive. Start has encouraged a strong relationship between the gallery and the school. Staff are now so confident about the accessibility of the whole site and of the warm welcome that they will receive at aspex that they have recently begun to turn up off spec with small groups of pupils. Given that it can take up to twenty minutes to get everyone on and off the specially adapted minibuses this is very tangible proof that Start is already developing the basis for a long term relationship between aspex and Mary Rose school.
Amy Lloyd, Education & Outreach Co-ordinator at aspex, said: “The value of these sessions is tangible; the children clearly get a great deal out of them.
“aspex is extremely grateful to Start for enabling this wonderful opportunity.”
Further information
Children & the Arts homepage: www.childenandarts.org.uk