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The Stopfordian 2011–2012
bombarded the audience at break-neck speed, turned our
expectations upside down. The children didn’t have to ask
about his style of writing or where he sourced his ideas – the
answers were obvious: from his amazing sense of humour and
quirky approach to life.
Everyone, children and adults, loved his performance and the
children’s interest in his books soared, as evidence by the fact
that his books flew off the shelves. By 3.00pm we had ‘sold
out’ and had to ‘shut up shop’.
J. Mercer
AUTHOR VISIT - DEBI GLIORI
The author and illustrator Debi Gliori visited the school in July
to speak to the Year 1 and Year 2 children about her latest
book ‘The Scariest Thing of All’.
The book is about a little rabbit, Pip, who has a seemingly
endless list of things to be afraid of such as gobblers, wood
trolls and vast ‘hissters‘ to name but a few. By the end of the
story Pip realises that, all the time he was really afraid of his
own over-active imagination.
The children loved the story and many of the adults
recognised the source of their own irrational fears. Debi
showed the children how the
story evolved and we saw the
illustrations grow from rough
sketches to captivating pieces
of art. Her use of colour to
create atmosphere combined
with her ability to illustrate
wonderful animal characters
had even the youngest
members of the audience
enthralled.
J. Mercer
YEAR 6 ART PROJECT – GARGOYLES
This Art Day was about the ancient myth of ‘The Green Man’
and gargoyles, the stone face-carvings on the downspouts
many old churches and other buildings.
We began by looking at photographs of the weathered, lichencovered
gargoyles from St Michael’s church, Winchcombe, in
the Cotswolds, famous for its wonderful examples of this art
form, carved by stone masons many hundreds of years ago.
Clearly some of these are nightmarish demons from the artists’
imaginations and fears, but others appear to be well-observed
portraits of grimacing real people, well-known to the sculptors.
It is thought these were often put in place to ward off the evil
spirits that people knew lurked under every bed, round every
corner, and in and behind every tree and hollow…
The first activity was to produce a drawing of these, traced
from the A4 photographs. However, this process evolved and
changed, even at this so-called ‘copying’ stage, into something
personal as the pupils saw it emerging onto the paper, and
began to emphasise elements in their photograph and on the
drawing as it developed.
The second activity began similarly to activity one with a
tracing, but only as a line drawing. This was then stuck to a
larger sheet of white paper with masking tape. This project
then used masking tape to ‘draw’ in relief around and into the
lines and shapes, building up a surface of layered textures as
the tape was distorted around the lines. Once finished these
were ‘scrumbled’ over with paper and graphite/crayons like a
brass-rubbing to produce yet another type of drawing.
The third activity involved clay as a medium. Having learned
something about the history and nature of clay as a material,
we then looked at the A4 images of the gargoyles. The pupils
then rolled out the clay and laid it over a ‘bridge’ of cardboard.
From here, having been shown a few simple and basic forming
and texturing methods, their imaginations took over and, using
the stimulus of the gargoyle pictures, developed their own
faces. Once dry they scraped into the surface to add even
more texture and then used acrylic and metallic paint to
complete their ‘gargoyle’.
These fantastic models graced the entrance hall of the Junior
School and served to impress but also to ward off any ‘evil
spirits’ that could have been lurking around!
J. Mercer
116 Junior School