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On 2020, we were featured in a Times Educational Supplement article titled, "How a focus on the Arts can Boost Resilience and Character". This is a global publication for those with an interest in education. We spoke about our 'emphasis on the process, rather than the finished work' and pupils' enjoyment of the subject.

How a focus on arts can boost resilience

2019 Year 6 Artsmark Blog

SENACRE WOOD PRIMARY SCHOOL

ANIMATE ARTS CHAMPION SCHOOL, 2025-27

Plaque-giving ceremony: 9 January 2025

Kent-based community interest company, Animate Arts, is delighted to name Senacre Wood Primary School as an Animate Arts Champion School 2025-27. Every two years the company awards the title to three Kent schools in recognition of their exemplary commitment to delivering a creative education for their pupils, valuing arts-based learning as an essential component of their curriculum.

From inviting Animate Arts’ team of professional artists into their schools, to being an inspiration in their ethos towards creative learning, Animate’s chosen School Champions go above and beyond to champion creativity in their school settings and support the work of the Company.

Animate Arts’ Founder and Artistic Director, Jo Dyer, says:

“Animate Arts works with many schools across the south-east and Senacre Wood Primary School is a particularly bright beacon for creativity. Throughout the last few years, the school has continued to champion art in its classrooms throughout the school year, welcoming professional artists into the school to work with the children and staff, and creating the most wonderful creative environment for all their children to access a cultural education. They truly deserve this recognition!”

Congratulations to all the staff and pupils of Senacre Wood Primary School on winning this special title!

EYFS Term 1

At the start of term Mrs Clarkson showed us a selection of objects and asked us what we noticed about them. They were all red! Mrs Clarkson got out a selection of materials like felt-tip pens, oil pastels, drawing pastels, paint dabber bottles, poster paint, paint sticks, chalk, colouring pencils and powder paint. We got to try them all out and see what we could do with them, using giant sheets of paper.

Over the next couple of weeks we repeated this activity using yellow and blue. We talked about what we could use to apply paint such as paintbrushes, sponges, fingers, hands, paint dabber bottles and paint sticks. We had a brilliant time making patterns with different rollers and experimenting.

After that we looked at colour mixing. We did colour mixing in all sorts of different ways – using watered down paints in test-tubes and mixing them using pipettes, using cardboard to mix the colours together, using our hands and fingers, using brushes etc. We found out we could make different colours like purple, orange, green and brown. Some of us also talked about how we could make these colours different by adding different quantities of the paint.

Finally, we looked at some self-portraits by Picasso. We talked about the similarities and differences between them. We used pre-cut shapes to make our own abstract self-portraits and then drew patterns over the top of them.

eyfs term 2

We started off the term by watching a video and talking about what fireworks look like. We were all given a sheet of paper with one firework on it and had to decide what else would be in the sky and what would be on the ground underneath the fireworks. We looked at some photos of fireworks over Leeds Castle, in London and over water and all chose our own scene. Then we had the choice of materials to create the rest of the picture. Some of us drew them and some of us used collage materials.

The following week we were learning about Diwali. We looked at a selection of Rangoli art and drew Rangoli patterns outside on the ground using chalks and also in pastels on black card. We also worked in small groups and had a walk around the school finding lots of shapes that were circles. We took photos of them on the Ipads.

We then started looking at dinosaurs. We drew dinosaurs on Shrinkle paper and put them in the over to make them shrink. We talked about how to make 3D settings for the dinosaurs to stand in, using cereal boxes with the fronts cut off. We had to think about how to make the trees stand up, how to join materials together and how we could make the flying dinosaurs stay in the air. Once we had made everything we put all the parts together and photographed them using the Ipads. We also looked at shining coloured torches at the work to change the effects.

At the end of the term we learnt about Christmas and did some Christmas crafts. We all enjoyed decorating wooden reindeer decorations and making Christmas baubles

Year 1 Term 1

This term had a very exciting start as we are now having our art lessons in the art studio! We started off by doing lots of experimental work. We used wax crayon, candles and water colour paints to try out wax resist and we also explored mixing the water colour paints to make new colours just like we did with the poster paints last year. Some of us made repeating patterns in our work.

We also looked at printing. We dipped Duplo bricks into primary colours and mixed the colours together to make secondary colours. We printed these onto coloured paper to make brick paper.

We looked at the painting Burg and Sun by Paul Klee. We talked about what the painting reminded us of and what shapes we could see in the painting. We used our brick paper, drew around 2D shapes and cut the shapes out. Then we worked as a team to position them on the page to turn them into buildings.

Miss Munday took photos of us pretending to be superheroes. We had to get ourselves into a position so that we’d look the part. We cut the photos out and then everyone positioned their photo onto our artwork to create a superhero scene. We evaluated our work by drawing or sticking an emoji onto a photo to show what we thought of our work.

Finally, we developed our modelling skills using clay. We learnt how to make pinch pots and looked at mark making using the different tools. We talked about the verbs we could use to describe the different ways that we could manipulate the clay.

year 1 term 2

We started off the year by developing our drawing skills. We collected lots of autumnal objects and sat on the floor to draw them on A3 paper. We learnt how to do continuous line drawings where we weren’t allowed to take our pencils off the paper. We then squiggled over the drawings to show where the shadows would be. We had the choice of hard and soft pencils, graphite sticks and charcoal.

After that we thought about the vocabulary we can use to describe colours. We looked at a colour wheel and recapped what would happen when we mixed the primary colours together to make secondary colours. We recorded this in our Big Book. We talked about the colours in a rainbow and made our own rainbow art using oil pastels, candles and watercolour paints.

We looked at the work of artist Vicki Rawlins. She creates portraits using leaves and flowers and draws the faces on. We looked at some different work and talked about which one was our favourite and why. We copied some of her work into our books. The following week we created our own portraits using leaves and flowers.

At the end of the term we did some experimental drawings to share how we feel. We listed to Vivaldi’s 4 seasons and drew whatever we thought of choosing whichever materials we liked.

year 2 term 1

This term we have been learning about Japanese artist, Yayoi Kusama. Kusama is a contemporary artist that uses polka dots in her work. She creates sculptures and paintings and she covers objects in dots such as whole rooms, people, objects and even a horse! We started learning how to make a sketchbook page about an artists which included sketches and some facts. Everyone’s sketchbook page looked different and we looked at each other’s work to help with some ideas.

We all created some artwork using cotton buds to create dots and we then had a class discussion about what we would like to do for our final piece. We thought of lots of ideas including a spotty dog and a submarine and voted for making a submarine with windows that we could look through. We We worked really well as a team to create this and invited our families in to have a look.

year 2 term 2

This term we have been learning about the architect Hundertwasser and using his work to inspire our own designs for mosques and synagogues. We started off by watching a video and talking about what birds would see if they were to fly over our school. We looked at Google Earth and zoomed in on the school, Mote Park, Leeds Castle and Maidstone Museum and discussed the shapes that we could see.

After that, we used different drawing tools and had a go at drawing different buildings. We talked about continuous line drawings and using the positive and negative shapes that we could see to help us. We then looked at photos of buildings designed by Hundertwasser. We watched a video about his work and learnt that he hated straight lines and often had bright, primary school colours on his buildings. We drew some of the buildings in our sketch books and write some notes.

We then worked in small groups to design and build our own architecture. We had the choice of a mosque or a synagogue as this linked to our recent work in RE. We learnt how to make L Brackets to join the pieces of cardboard together.

Once we’d constructed our buildings we then had to cut out windows and doors and then decorate them. We reminded ourselves of the colours and shapes that Hundertwasser used and incorporated some of these into our buildings.

Finally, we discussed how our work could be presented. We looked at some video clips showing different museums and galleries and then we agreed in our small groups how to display our work. We took photos and videos of our architecture and uploaded them to Seesaw, talking about our work.

Year 3 Term 1

We started off our unit of work by reading the first story in Vincent’s Starry Night and other stories. We discussed what it would be like to draw on cave walls and what the surface would feel like. We scrunched up paper into tight balls and then flattered it out and we had an experimental lesson, drawing underneath the tables, on the walls and on the path outside. We talked about the difficulties of what the cave people would have experienced. We also talked about what Stone Age people would have used to make their clothes and why.

Mrs Clarkson showed us a photo of a sculpture. We had to be art detectives to see what we thought it was and what is was used for. After that we looked at photos and videos about it. We learnt that it was an ancient carved sculpture believed to be around 40,000 years old. We had a go at making a page in our sketchbook all about him. After that we used clay to make our own lion man sculpture. We talked about what would have happened if the original lion man had been made out of clay instead of a mammoth’s tusk.

We spent a lesson experimenting with different paints and tried to make as many different hues of brown using the primary colours. We learnt that adding white makes a tint and adding black makes a shade. We then used tea stained paper and did some anatomical drawings of woolly mammoths on it. We tried to copy the drawings accurately, looking carefully at the scale and proportion.

Finally, we used all of the skills we’d learnt this term to produce our own piece of cave art. We talked about what we enjoyed about the process and what we like about the end result. We discussed the problems that came up and how we solved them and what we might like to try next time

year 3 term 2 DT project

This term Year 3 have been using their art time to complete a DT project. They have been developing our skills of sewing by designing and making Christmas stockings. We started off the term by researching stockings and thinking about the success criteria that we’d need to use to make the finished product. After that we designed our own stockings.

Once our designs were complete, we used templates to draw and cut out the pieces to make the stocking. We sewed them together using running stitch and added our own design to the stocking, as well as snow at the top. We added sequins to our stockings.

Finally, we looked back at the success criteria and discussed whether we had remembered to use them. Everyone was very impressed with our finished work.

Year 4 Term 1

This term we have been studying the work of Ukranian artist, Olka Kostenko. She is a graphic designer that turns her work into clothes, colouring books and doodle illustrations. She draws most of her work on paper and then scans them into the computer. First of all we did some research on the artist. We created a page in our sketchbooks all about her work.

We then got to choose our own topics based on what we were learning in class. We had the choice of different types of animals. We had a selection of pictures around our topic and we had to cut the pictures out and play around with compositions to decide what looked best.

Once we had designed our work we learnt how to do the lettering. We then drew the main pictures around the edge. Finally we added doodles into all the gaps to complete the work. We talked about the strengths of our work and why the artwork was effective. We also talked about how these ideas could be used to do artwork for any other subject and what we would change if we were to do another one in a similar style.

We turned our doodle art into colouring books and are planning on selling these at the Christmas fair.

year 4 term 2

In art this term we have been looking at seascapes, particularly focusing on the paintings by Winslow Homer. We talked about ways of making our sketchbooks our own and learnt how to make little pockets for work, how to add a page, how to fold larger sheets of paper so that they come out and how to use different papers to make different surfaces. We also looked at cutting into our sketchbook pages to make the edges wavy and had a discussion about why it’s good in art to have everyone’s work looking different.

We looked at some seascapes by Homer and chose three each. We ranked them from our favourite to least favourite and wrote about what we liked or disliked about them. We also did some sketches of his work and talked about how the sea made us feel.

After that we used paints in a variety of ways to produce different effects. We had a go at blending colours and experimented with brush techniques to achieve smooth waters or crashing seas. We were then given the challenge of creating 4 different painted sheets of paper by flicking paint, using watercolour paint over wax crayons, using powder paint and dragging sticks through wet paint.

Once our papers had dried, we then had to create a Viking ship collage. We had to think about how we wanted the audience to feel. Some of us wanted huge, stormy waves and some of us wanted calmer waters. We had to create a sky that represented these emotions and make a ship using different materials. We made shields to stick on the side of the boats.

Finally we evaluated our work. We talked about the composition, how the colour and shapes made us feel and what we would like to improve next time.

Year 5 Term 1

This term we have been developing our understanding of sculpture. We looked at the wind sculptures made by Yinka Shonibare and watched a video about them. He is a British-Nigerian, disabled artist. We compared his work to the work of Joan Miro and discussed how they are similar or different and which art we liked best and why.

We experimented by making simple collages inspired by some of the elements in Miro’s paintings and Shonibare’s sculptures. We teared and cut forms and experimented with colour, shape and composition. We talked about how collage can sometimes make you feel “freer” than drawings as you can’t really get them “wrong”. We then did automatic drawings over the top of the collages. We felt a bit strange doing this as we are used to having an image in our heads and then trying to reproduce this. We had mixed feelings on whether or not we enjoyed this activity!

After that we cut organic shapes out of our card and experimented with joining them together using small pieces of wire. We learnt how to use wire cutters and how to twist the wire to get the pieces to hold together. We also learnt about how to make the sculptures balance and talked about how some of them could be displayed in several different ways.

Finally, we talked about the best ways to display and photograph our sculptures (and did so!) and then we evaluated them.

Year 5 Term 2

This term we have been using the work of William Morris as our inspiration. We researched him and made some notes and sketches about his work and we discussed what we thought of his work. During this lesson we also discussed how to present work in our books and looked at adding coloured paper for backgrounds, making little booklets, putting our facts in different shaped boxes (like flowers), making pockets, thinking about our font and having pull-out parts.

We then sketched some of our own designs inspired by his work. We included lots of leaves, flowers, dragonflies and birds.

Once we had decided on our final design we had to make our printing plates. We looked at Mrs Clarkson’s examples and decided if we wanted to use string or card for our relief printing. We then spent time making our printing plates and some of us added extra detail to them.

Then it was time for printing. We looked at rolling the paint on one way and then turning the printing plate and rolling it another way. We also looked at adding a second colour on top, referring to a colour wheel to think about the effect that we wanted to create. After we’d done our printing we watched a video about printing wallpaper and talked about how we could turn our own prints into wall paper. We drew a picture of a room, talking about perspective and did our wallpaper design on one wall.

Year 6 Term 1

This term we have been learning about and producing our own digital art. We started off the topic by discussing what we already knew about digital art and by making a mind map about it. We looked at the work of digital artist David Hurtado and learnt about his digital map illustrations.

After that we started learning how to use the Sketchbook app. We learnt how to select and use different pens, brushes and tools and how to change the colour using the colour wheel. We also learnt how to select colours that we’d already used. Mrs Clarkson modelled how layers can be used in art to make adjusting work much easier and we had a go at drawing some flowers in a vase and then moving the flowers around and making changes to them.

Then we looked at Google Earth and had a go at drawing an aerial view of both our school and Mote Park. We got to decide what we wanted to use to draw with and talked about how our drawings could be made to look like maps.

Finally we created an illustrated map of our local park. We used Google maps and took a screenshot of Mote Park. We then drew the lake and the grassy area on a separate layer, changing the opacity so we could use the map as a guideline. We added the roads around the edge, some footpaths and then added on all the main tourist attractions such as the miniature railway, boating lake, pavilion etc by drawing a picture on different layers, reducing them in size and putting them in the correct place.

At the end of the project we discussed all the new skills that we had learnt and talked about how we could apply them to different projects.

year 6 term 2

This term Y6 have been learning about manga. Manga are Japanese comic books and graphic novels and were made famous by the manga artist Osamu Tesuka. We started off the term by looking at the Astro Boy manga. We talked about features in the work such as different sized and shaped boxes, reading from right to left and have different shaped speech bubbles.

We then followed some tutorials looking at showing how characters are feeling. We learnt how to change the eyes and the mouths and then we followed instructions to draw people by looking at a tutorial on Youtube and by positioning and drawing manikins.

We each took part of the story of Macbeth and had to design and draw our own manga to tell our part of the story. Finally we put all of our work together to make the completed play and evaluated our work thinking about what made our artwork effective and who would appreciate our work.

Rob turner

December 2022

Year 4 and 6 worked with local artist, Rob Turner to create a map symbolising community collaboration, pride and local heritage. It was made in conjunction with Otham's residents on behalf of Bellway's Parsonage Place development.  It weaves together history, local knowledge, and a shared sense of belonging, creating an authentic portrayal of the area. We are absolutely delighted with how it turned out and are looking forward to creating more work with Rob over the next few months. 

September 2023

Year 4 had a fantastic afternoon taking part in an art workshop this week. Local artist and mapmaker, Rob Turner, is involved with a project to develop artwork for housing estates in the local area. Year 4 were given the task of producing their own pictures to symbolise different religious statements from the Bible. The children thoroughly enjoyed displaying their own interpretations of the statements and Rob was pleased with how thoughtful and interesting their ideas were.

Some of these pictures will be engraved on paving stones along Church Street – keep a look out in the future to see if you can find them!