News
Sightsavers 2012 Junior Painter of the Year launched
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130,000 children help break charity world record
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ORE than 130,000 schoolchildren from the UK and overseas are believed to have broken the Guinness World Record for the most people performing sign language.
Pupils at schools in Great Britain, Africa and Spain took part in the sign2sing world record attempt organised by the charity SignHealth at 2.45pm on Wednesday, February 8.
Steve Powell, Chief Executive at SignHealth, said: “More than 900 schools from all over the country and overseas registered to take part in our Guinness World Record sign2sing project.
“The schools range in size from 30 to 800 pupils, which, from our calculations, means more than 130,000 schoolchildren, took part in the event. The exact number of participants will be confirmed by Guinness World Records at a later date.
Sign2sing is designed to raise awareness of deafness and the work of SignHealth, which provides health-related services for all Deaf people, as well as acting as a fundraiser for the charity through sponsorship from businesses and a suggested donation of £1 for everyone taking part. The charity will be organising the event again next year. People wishing to take part are invited to contact SignHealth to register their interest.
EDT to recognise Teacher contribution
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ducation charity EDT has launched a national award to help recognise the nearly 2000 teachers that make such an important contribution to helping run the EDT programmes each year. EDT programmes engage over 25,000 secondary school pupils each year in work-related STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) learning programmes across more than 1700 schools. The nominations for the award will be driven by the EDT regional offices that work day to day with the teachers and see the contribution that they make. The criteria ensures that as a result of their involvement with EDT the teacher has had considerable impact on the development of the STEM curriculum across all secondary key stages. Integral to this curriculum development will be the improvement in personal skills and the raise of STEM careers awareness among pupils. Mark Williams, EDT’s Education Director says, “The teachers involved in the EDT programmes put many hours into ensuring their pupils gain maximum benefit from the experience of working on projects with mentors from industry. Teachers tell us that they make excellent contacts and have good CPD from running the programmes, but we wanted to develop an award that recognised the effort that teachers put into ensuring their pupils get the experiences which enable them to make informed decisions on whether a career in Science or Engineering is for them. It is vital that pupils are properly engaged at every stage of their school careers, because from a very early stage they are making subject choices that could preclude them from a STEM career in which they might be highly successful.”
March 2012
he Royal Academy of Arts is bending the rules as they launch the Junior Painter of the Year 2012 competition run by development charity, Sightsavers, this February. With pupils encouraged to create tactile paintings, the Royal Academy’s prestigious gallery will be doing away with its ‘no touch’ policy and allowing visitors to feel the winning entries when they go on display this autumn.
Now in its seventh year, the competition aims to encourage primary school children across the UK to reflect on sight and blindness through art. Last year more than 3,000 children aged between four and 11 entered the competition and, with this year’s ‘i:dream’ theme, Sightsavers hopes to encourage even more children to take part. Three national winners, one from each category (four to seven years, eight to nine years and 10 to 11 years), will be selected from a list of regional winners and all regional and national winners will have their work exhibited at the Royal Academy. National winners will enjoy an awards day in London in autumn with their teachers including a trip on the London Eye River Cruise and an awards ceremony at the Royal Academy.
This year’s competition has the largest judging panel yet and includes the Royal Academy’s new keeper, Eileen Cooper. She says: “This is a very important project, in aid of a wonderful cause, and it will help to promote the activity of painting in schools. I am delighted to be involved and am - like most artists - very interested in and touched by artwork produced by young people.”
Sightsavers hopes this year’s focus on tactile paintings will encourage pupils to explore the senses of sight and touch: “Art is for everyone, not just for people who can see and tactile painting is a great way of celebrating this,” says Sightsavers’ Schools Development Officer, Gemma Roberts. “What’s most important is that the artwork is a painting, but it would be wonderful if pupils would like to experiment with textures, whether that is with sand, paper, rice or whatever they like!”
Schools interested in participating in the competition this year can find out more at:
www.sightsavers.org
or by contacting the Junior Painter of the Year helpline on 01444 446 768 for a free awards pack. Entries must be submitted by 12 September 2012.
Schools can also take part in Sightsavers’ national i:care week which takes place from Monday 18 to Friday 22 June and helps pupils learn about avoidable blindness and inclusive education in the world. With over 140 school speakers around the UK, Sightsavers can deliver assemblies and classroom activities during the week.
uFor free materials for i:care week or to invite a speaker to your school call the schools team on 01444 446 600.
'I care about Japan' by Lexie Wilson, national winner for Upper Juniors
www.education-today.co.uk 5
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