Grey Coat Issue 10: February 2011


Jack Petchey Award winner Natalie Ortegon won the January Jack Petchey award


She spent a lot of her own time out of normal school hours selecting, designing and making dresses for the school play ‘The Crucible’, making alterations to existing costumes and helping to fit the hired ones. She worked tirelessly and organised others really well. She tried to adapt the costumes to our needs, even though we kept asking for adjustments. She worked long hours and weekends to make sure the costumes were ready and was committed and reliable throughout the process. She really helped to enhance the visual side of the production. She was incredibly reliable and a very valuable member of the team. Janette Parish


Art department news and views 3


Photos: 2 of the art rooms in the new Arts Block


We have moved! Goodbye Portakabin and M6! We have now moved into our fantastic rooms in the newly built Arts Block. We have three large classrooms, a roof terrace, a new art office and new facilities in particular for ceramics.


Creative Mentors Foundation For the past two years the Art Department have worked with the Creative Mentors Foundation. The foundation trains arts graduates in dyslexia awareness and specialist teaching strategies, preparing them to work in schools alongside the existing staff who are engaged in arts teaching. See the link below to find out information about this registered charity: http://creativementors.co.uk/who-we-are Last year we had video artist Andrew Vallance from the Royal College of Art working with us in the Art department. He


worked with a small group of yr 7 and 8 students to create a video entitled ‘Home’. You can see the video on our blog on: http://gchartdepartment.wordpress. com/


This year we have a new artist working with us as a mentor, Stuart McCaffer. He is a sculptor and also a recent graduate of the Royal College of Art. He will work with a group of Yr 7 & 8 students to create a large inflatable sculpture, soon to be revealed at lower school! We are very lucky that one of our talented Yr 12 students Sadie Stephenson has offered to help support the workshops. If you are interested in finding out about the creative mentors programme or helping out, please get in touch with a member of the Art department.


Beautiful window light fills one of the new art rooms


Congratulations! Congratulations to Helen Chiu in Year 13 who had an interview last week for direct entry onto a BA Graphics degree course at Winchester School of Art, Southampton University. She has been given an offer.


It’s very unusual to be accepted onto a degree course without having done a foundation course – Helen is really gifted in art and really deserves this achievement. Well done Helen! Gillian Lyons, Head of Art


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