Star - The National Society for Education in Art and Design

6
hands-on in the classroom
Tudor houses
John Fidler explores the tudors with Year
four children at Bielefeld School, Catterick
Barracks in North West Germany – a
familiar theme to KS2 practitioners.
Alongside the literacy and history themes
ran an art and DT unit of study that sought
to bring together several related threads
in this exciting topic.
The children began the unit by looking at
portraits painted by Van Eyck (The
Arnolfini Marriage) and Holbein (The
Ambassadors). They were particularly
fascinated by the distorted skull that is
prominent in the latter. The significance of
objects and symbolism within the
pictures were discussed and
comparisons made with the present.
They were then tasked with creating selfportraits
that followed a similar ideology,
i.e. they had to include objects that held
significant meaning or that represented
them as individuals. Needless to say,
quite a lot of the finished pieces included
PlayStations and had figures attired in
favourite football kits. The children
became quite adept at ‘reading’ paintings
of the Tudor period and were quick to
appreciate the fact that the artists often
had to paint what their paymasters
wanted to see.
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Visit
www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/tudors/
www.tudorbritain.org
Aspects of the QCA unit (4B) ‘Take a seat’
were also incorporated into the scheme.
After looking at images of religious and
ceremonial seats, the children sketched
out designs for ‘Thrones, fit for a King’.
Simple card models were constructed
and suitably embellished before being
displayed in front of a reproduction of one
of Holbein’s portraits of Henry VIII.
The children had been listening to stories
of everyday street life and had heard of
cut-purses. Needles, thread and felt were
duly produced. For most of the children,
it was their first experience of sewing
and, after a struggle, most were able to
thread their own needles! A combination
of running stitch and over stitch, coupled
with loop and button fastenings,
produced small but perfectly usable
purses.
The bulk of the unit of study was taken up
by a combined art and DT project.
Following a visit to a nearby museum,
where they had first-hand experience of
being in and around timber-framed
buildings, the children were split into
teams of four. They were informed that
they were going to build ‘Tudor’ houses.
Anticipating the usual collection of boxes
and paper, they were surprised to be
confronted with wood and saws. Their
remit, after a thorough demonstration of
correct use of saws and bench hooks,
was to construct models of Tudor
dwellings in as reasonably an authentic
manner as possible, given the limitations
of the classroom! A generic plan was
provided for them to follow, although
happily the outcomes were far from
identical. The timber (10 mm square
section lengths), had to be cut to size and
assembled into panels, much the same as
would have been done at the time.
Instead of wattle and daub infill between
the timbers, we opted for woodchip
paper, which ended up looking quite
realistic. Once dry, the panels were
assembled using PVA glue and were held
together with metal clips. Windows and
doors were coloured and cut from paper,
before being glued into the appropriate
positions. Roof spars were hot-glued by
the teacher and then ‘thatched’ by the
children with string, pipe-cleaners, raffia
and wool. The timbers were painted
black, not only to represent the patina of
age and applications of weatherproofing
liquids, but also because the buildings
didn’t look quite right otherwise.
In all, ten buildings were constructed.
They each displayed a pleasing degree of
non-compliance with right angles or
plumb-line verticals! When grouped
together and photographed as a street
scene the houses looked extremely
‘realistic’ – such that, after the children
had held a very successful ‘Tudor day’,
photos of them in costume were
superimposed onto the ‘streets’ to create
very lifelike images.
Key learning objectives
• to create a Tudor-style building by
drawing on first-hand experience
• to link the work to other curricular areas
• to learn how to use unfamiliar tools
safely and effectively
• to work as part of a team
Artists of the period
As well as the Holbeins (Elder and
Younger) and Van Eyck, you could try an
internet image search for:
• Lucas Horenbout (c.1490–1544) –
who became court painter after
Holbein the Elder.
• Levina Teerlinc (c.1510–1576) –
a renowned female miniaturist.
Cross-curricular links
History: You could spend a whole school
year exploring various aspects of Tudor
life, or just limit your studies to specific
areas like family life (contrasting rich and
poor) or exploration.
Literacy: A link from Tudor houses via
significant other public buildings, i.e.
theatres, should arrive at The Globe and
William Shakespeare. The fact that this
holds opportunities to encourage drama in
the classroom goes without saying.
Science: Many important discoveries and
theories came to light during this period.
Film references
Anne of the Thousand Days, 1969, Richard
Burton, Genevieve Bujold. Rated PG
A Man for all Seasons, 1966, Paul
Schofield, Robert Shaw. Rated U
A few places to visit
• The Mary Rose
• Hampton Court Palace
• The Museum of London
• Ulster Museum
• York (for the experience of walking streets
that remain essentially medieval in layout)
hands-on in the classroom
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