Belonging: Possum Skin Cloak Project, Heatherhill Primary School

Maree Clarke In 2012, through the Artists in Schools Project, Heatherhill Primary School created a beautiful artefact, a Possum Skin Cloak, under the guidance of Aboriginal artist, Maree Clarke. ‘Belonging’ was a project that looked at how we all belong in Australia. The artist worked with many students from diverse cultural backgrounds. With the artist […]

The Ethical Use of Photographs in the School Classroom

Dr Susan Paterson The documentation of children’s work in the school classroom plays an important role in the development of positive identity for the child and their peers. Photographing children at work and the learning outcomes of that work has increasingly played a part in early childhood and primary school classrooms around the world. The use of photographs as a bridge to oral […]

To weave or not to weave, that is the (knotty) question

NICOLA PHILIP I would hazard a guess that many of the art teachers in our primary schools are not formally art trained, at least not at the start of their art room journey anyway. Often it is people returning from family leave who only wish to work part time, or those among us who are […]

Spirit of ANZAC Public Art Exhibition

Involvement in an arts program has gains in many other subject areas including literacy, numeracy, history, cognitive ability, critical thinking and problem solving. The Arts connect our students to the world and give them a new way of seeing things.  Sirius College has adapted this view in recent years. Prior to 2014, the arts program […]

How I Learnt to Stop Worrying and Love Boys’ Art

LAURA RUSSELL Last year at parent/teacher interviews, a parent spoke to me about her son’s declining interest in drawing at home. Her son, a very capable student, enjoyed drawing in Art class and at home in the evenings but his interest was declining. As a concerned parent she was looking for advice on how to […]

Helping a Child Negotiate Difficult Experiences: An Intersection of Education and Therapy through Drawing

ELVIRA KALENJUK Many teachers can relate to the experience of having a student in their care who struggles with an on-going conflict, tension or personal issue that has arisen from what they see as a major disruption in their world. I began to understand this process through an encounter with a six-year-old girl in my […]

Teaching Art is Easy

MAX DARBY Sadly, for many of us, some people seem to think teaching art is easy. All that is needed are a few skills and techniques, materials, and everything ‘just happens’. Wrong! This article contains lists of the many different teaching methods and different experiences we provide to maintain student interest and enthusiasm. It demonstrates […]