The Alver Valley Arts Council have planned our whole school art project on climate change. You can read more about the various stages of the planning process here. The arts council are proud to present the Alver Valley Virtual Art Gallery. The virtual gallery contains art submissions from across our schools including models, digital art, photography and sculpture. Please enjoy visiting our virtual gallery.

The Alver Valley Arts Council are very interested in getting some general feedback, including how many people have viewed our exhibits, and from where. Please fill in the short survey a below to share your thoughts.

In Nursery as a whole class we created a giant sea creature from recycled items for our Art Climate Change Project using recycled materials.

Together we spoke about creatures we see in the sea. The children showed lots of interest and shared their beach trip experiences. The children decided to create an octopus and with a little help to think about how from the adults they got underway and were very enthusiastic to get stuck in.

They started by using our fine and gross motor skills to rip and tear large pieces of paper that was an old advertising poster. The children found this tricky at times and were turning and twisting the paper to pull the paper apart so were shown if we chose less paper and use our fingers to rip it, it is much easier. The children then were eager to stir their ‘Potion’ of glue and water to make a sticky paste and added the ripped pieces of paper to the ‘potion.’ The children used some lovely descriptive language they said the mixture looked like milk, that it was gooey, sloppy and that it was getting harder to stir the more paper that was added.
Once the paper was well soaked we stuck it to an old gym ball. While waiting for it to dry we then threaded our old used milk bottle tops from our daily milk onto pieces of wool. The children showed lots of concentration and attention to thread the lids.

Next came painting our creation. We spoke about the different colours and how the colours change when they’re mixed together.
One of the children went and found an egg box and said it needed “More bits” the children helped stick different textured paper and card to it.
We then added used party streamers to add tentacles to our sea creature. The children were very pleased with the finished result!

The book ‘Somebody Swallowed Stanley’ by Sarah Roberts inspired lots of talk and discussion about taking care of our world and how we all have a part to play in this. Following this discussion about climate change, recycling and taking care of our world the children decided that they wanted to make a sea creature to display in the gallery as our community contribution. Mr Cook had recently visited the beach and found some shells and sea creatures so brought them to school to show us. We looked closely at the crab in particular under the visualiser and the children all agreed that we simply had to make a crab.

Children worked together as a community using recycled materials to weave their hoop. They used recycled cups to create the legs. They have created this masterpiece titled ‘The Community Crab’ We hope you enjoy it.

Year 1 discussed what Climate Change meant to them and the kind of project they wanted do. We had previously read several books about plastic pollution and the effect on sea creatures. ‘Somebody Swallowed Stanley’ and ‘The Wide Wide Sea’ inspired us. The children were very concerned about the issues and we decided this would be the project for us.

The teachers searched for ideas and we came up with Rubbish Fish. We collected soft plastic, wrappers, crisp packets etc. to stuff the plastic fish. The children worked in pairs to symbolize how important it is to work together to help solve environmental problems.

The fish took an afternoon to make and then we set about creating something to hang the fish from. We chose a wheel to signify the circle of life and then used plastic bags to weave the spokes. Everyone had a turn and the children used a previously taught skill to complete the frame.

Once all the fish were attached ‘The Rubbish Fish’ masterpiece was created.

Year 2 created these amazing flowers from recycled plastic bottles as their contribution to the school climate change unity project. They cut bottles in half to fashion a flower and vase from the same bottle, and then painted and added details.

In Year 4 we discussed what climate change meant to us and what we felt passionately about in relation to this. We feel strongly about the increasing problem of plastic pollution, in particular the devastating impact it has on ocean wildlife. The children feel extremely enthusiastic about protecting marine life which is why we decided to focus on ocean species.

We researched ideas and we decided to focus on the idea of an octopus, an ocean creature called ‘Mr Wiggles’. We used bottle tops which we had collected and old school water bottle lids to create the image of an octopus.  These were selected and placed carefully to form the structure of the octopus. We deliberately chose the material of bottle tops and lids to create the illusion of suckers, in addition to the concept of reusing plastic. We came up with the name ‘Mr Wiggles’ as the legs of the creature appear to be wiggling.

Year 5 took part in a creative arts pilot project to learn about the jobs and skills needed to work in the film industry. In the lead up to the project children watched short videos from experts working in the field and were set challenges to complete. During project week the children worked as class teams to establish their film house, develop their concept, research, create logos, script, perform, make props, film (including on location), create music, edit and then market their films, behind-the-scenes clips and trailers.

The films were then premiered at a special red carpet event where children and families attended to view the films, with glitz, lights, popcorn and photo opportunities.

In Year 6, we worked collaboratively to create two pieces of art for the Climate Change Art Project.

The first one was a sculpture made with lots of random objects found on the beach, mainly plastic, which many people had dumped on it and that had been swept onto the shoreline. The second sculpture was made with natural objects washed up on the shore of the beach, like seaweed, sea sponges and birds. The amount of objects in the plastic sculpture was much more than the amount in the natural sculpture, to represent how much man-made waste is left at the beach and washed up from the ocean.

We made both sculptures by weaving the objects between each other in and out around a recycled bike wheel. Each pupil did a few objects each, either from the natural oceanwaste or the plastic waste to create the pieces you see. We were inspired by an artist named Jo Atherton. She is a world renowned artist, who uses found objects to create vast pieces of art. We tried to make our work as colourful as hers. The reason we did this project was to bring awareness to how we need to do more to protect our oceans and the environment in general.

We are excited to see our sculptures in the Yellow Edge Gallery in Gosport.

The Art Council wanted to have time to sketch, paint and create their own pieces of art using our lovely school grounds as the subject. The trees around our school are just beautiful and the children wanted to take time out to appreciate their beauty. We used a variety of mediums such as watercolour pencils, paints, sketching pencils, photography and ProCreate to generate a variety of artwork. I think you’ll agree they did a fantastic job.

As part of the Climate Change project, we decided as a school to run a competition from Nursery all the way to Year 6. We encouraged the children to use recycled resources rather than use anything brand new. The entries kept coming in and the response was unbelievable as was the quality.

Judging the entries was going to prove impossible so we asked to Arts Council to give Mrs Lockwood and Mrs Riley a hand. It took a couple of hours to agree on the prize winners, there were 13 in total.

The winners enjoyed their prize, which was a trip to the beach to do some natural art and to have an ice cream. Fun was had by all.