CHURCHER’S College Junior School has held its art week.

This annual event takes place in the autumn term and for the week the whole school curriculum is based upon a theme.

This year the week was based on Edward Lear’s Poem “The Owl and The Pussy Cat” to celebrate the opening of Churcher’s College Nursery School in January. The nursery will have the youngest Churcherians joining the pussycat class and the older infants will become owls.

In every classroom lessons were linked to the poem and the enthusiasm of children, teachers, parent helpers and visitors was evident at every turn. Lessons were linked to all curriculum subjects and also to topics already part of the programme of study.

Watercolour artist Sharon Hurst worked with the Year 3 pupils to create a trio of silk banners and then gave a masterclass in silk painting to Year 5. The pupils were delighted with their silk sun catcher owls that will form a chandelier in the nursery.

During the week Year 4 visited Southampton Art Gallery and Year 3 went to Churt Sculpture Park. Music featured high up on the arts week programme and the infants spent an afternoon in their own workshop created by music teacher Hamish Newport, while Year 6 produced a xylophone for the nursery walkway out of painted guttering pipes.

Every year all the children work together to form a piece of art work that is linked to the theme and is a collaborative whole school project. This year they worked on a project to recreate the poem outside along the nursery walkway using recycled materials. Resources had been collected since the beginning of term by parents, staff and children and sorted into colour groups by the children. The infants produced a pea green boat mosaic featuring the owl and the pussy cat on the start of the journey using a collection of bottle tops and helped by the head of the nursery, Annabel Knowles. This linked into a woven picture featuring the land where the bong tree grows created from strips of plastic bags woven into the fence with flowers and a bong tree manufactured from recycled bottles. Art teacher Catherine Foley worked with Year 3 pupils to produce a three dimensional turkey, cat and owl from chicken wire with plastic bag feathers and fur that was added to the walkway.

The week culminated with a Victorian themed dress up day and a special owl and pussy cat lunch.