This year John Hampden had a very different Artsweek experience due to the pandemic and keeping our school Covid safe.
We still had Artsweek but at a later date and without our usual army of helpers.
Artsweek this year was in class, each class timetabling their own week of artisitic activities ranging from silk painting to making clay pyramids, death masks to self-portraits, Egyptian style, Egyptian landscape scenes to decorative, jewelled collars and cuffs.
Classes made their own piece of the Jackson hall wall display, which was then joined together like a giant jigsaw puzzle, transporting the Jackson hall to the plains of Egypt, where a giant sphinx dominated the scene, Anubis guarding the class sarcophagi from any tomb raider that may chance his luck.
The John Hampden PTFA funded the week, with their usual, generous donation which enabled the classes to provide a wealth of experiences and resources for the children to enjoy!
The ‘Whose Egyptian profile is this?’ Artsweek Quiz saw the children challenged to identify a gallery of Egyptian-style profile portraits created by JHS staff. Each portrait was accompanied by clues to guide the children in their guesses as to which profile was which member of staff- giving hints as to the staff artist, for a whole school competition.
Well done to Wills Schleising and Milly Wood for their winning entries!
Well done as well to Alice Flitton, Benjamin Turner and Felix Allen for being crowned the winners of the Artsweek shield for their participation this year.
At the end of the week we celebrated our achievements with an Egyptian dress up day complete with our own camel, courtesy of the year 2 teachers. The Artsweek assembly shared photos of each class’s endeavours and we all danced like Egyptians! It had to be done!
We look forward to next term when we will be able to enjoy our Egyptian jigsaw wall as the backdrop to the Year 6 production of Joseph. Any dream will do as long as it is an Egyptian one!
Where will our next art adventure take us? Send your ideas for next year to Ms Nichols!
Jackie Nichols (Arts Coordinator)
Photos to follow