A free hands-on, immersive CPD session for primary school teachers and trainee teachers from any department. Art can uplift every subject!

Creative processes can help to bring the whole curriculum to life.

Book your free space for our hands-on, immersive CPD session for primary school teachers and trainee teachers from any department.

As part of our research within Creative Break Time, artist educator Emma Edmondson and senior teacher Hannah Head have collaboratively designed a training session (and resources) for teachers. A-Zish of Art for Teaching [and a how-to for classroom crits] shares practical ways of using contemporary art to uplift every subject.

At this session, you’ll be invited to actively explore creative learning exercises including speed-sculptures, an art school-style crit (feedback session), sketchbook making, life drawing, and a game of ‘Is It Art?’.

Emma and Hannah recently worked with Learning in Harmony Trust and Ambition Institute to deliver the full training clinic of art for a group of trainee teachers.

Here’s what these soon-to-be teachers had to say:

“Being less restrictive can produce fantastic pieces.”

“Great session that got us all involved! I feel more confident to teach art now”

" Loved the resources; really helpful in introducing new artists."

All material, resources and refreshments will be supplied at no cost.

Limited free parking available on site.

15 x places available.

Funded in-school sessions are available for wider staff groups.

If you have any questions, please contact creative.break@outlook.com

This training offer has been realised as part of Creative Break Time (https://freelandsfoundation.co.uk/resources/watch/creative-break-time), a project funded by Freelands Foundation which aims to connect Southend teachers with creativity and wellbeing, bringing artists and schools together in new, experimental ways. This is a 3 year active research project, led by 3 Southend arts organisations (Metal, Focal Point Gallery and TOMA (The Other MA).

About the facilitators

Emma Edmondson is an artist and organiser from Southend-on-Sea. Alternative economies, precarity, optimism and utopian community are at the centre of her research and she makes public sculpture in many forms; from art schools to beer mats to brick walls to books to karaoke to brass signs to sculptural shelters.

In 2016 she set up TOMA, an accessible artist-run education model which is currently the only postgrad-ish level art programme in Essex. TOMA sits outside the traditional institutional model and was born of and been shaped by austerity and the decades long businessification and dismantling of creative education. These are the politics that bought TOMA into existence and formed the basis of the sell-out book How to set up an art school. She has been working with creative education since 2011 and teaches in arts centres, community spaces, schools and universities, often on precarious contracts. Emma sees TOMA and education as part of her artistic practice, using it as an art material.

Hannah Head is a primary school teacher who loves creative methods that make learning and teaching fun. She has been a teacher since 2014 and has seen how an engaging lesson can challenge or overcome difficulties a student or teacher may have. With a belief in finding positivity and enjoyment in education - beyond and within the constraints of the curriculum - she continues to work to mentor teachers through the same thought process.

After completing a degree in Primary Education at the University of Brighton, she has since gone on to complete both a Masters in Education and her NPQ in Senior Leadership. She has taught across both key stages in primary schools and lives in Southend with her husband and two young children.

Description supplied by the event organiser.