Hands On! Arts Award meets Archaeology at Fishbourne Roman Palace & Gardens

The People We took a two-fold approach – Fishbourne Roman Palace & Gardens contacting local schools about Arts , Bognor Regis Award and taking advantage of for Girls training so that key members of

St Philip Howard Catholic High School, Barnham staff could become Arts Award advisers at Bronze and Silver levels. , Chichester

Bourne Community College, Emsworth

Felpham Community College, Bognor Regis

George Abbott School, Guildford Katrina Burton, Head of Learning, Fishbourne Roman Palace

The Project provided a focus and continuity to the sessions. The goal was to develop young people’s appreciation of Hands on! at Fishbourne Roman Palace was a two- archaeology and history – and to encourage them to month project supported by Artswork, the South East view the site in a different way. They used the mosaics Bridge. The project’s aim was to initiate an Arts Award as a source of inspiration for designs, motifs, patterns, scheme at a heritage site and develop links between textures and colours in their own work. Fishbourne and local schools. Due to a tight timescale, the decision was made to We started with a two-fold approach – contacting local concentrate efforts on KS3 students, offering the schools about Arts Award and taking advantage of opportunity to secondary schools to attend a taster training so that two key members of staff could session and find out more about the Arts Award become Arts Award advisers at Bronze and Silver scheme. levels. Promoting the taster sessions One of the key focuses of the project was to find ways Getting the message out about this opportunity to local to make Arts Award relevant to Fishbourne Roman young people was tricky. Several local secondary Palace, using existing experience and expertise to schools were contacted – the plan was to entice them develop a series of arts-based taster days. with a chance to get their students involved in a funded Using original Roman mosaics as a starting point Arts Award project. Fishbourne offered to meet with the Head of Art in each case, whenever was most convenient for them, but despite emails and phone calls, only six schools took up the opportunity. Another school also joined the conversation at a separate event.

Delivering the taster sessions

For each session, we asked young people to sign up in advance. We ran courses for the participants without accompanying adults present, so we needed signed consent forms to ensure attendance.

The sessions themselves all followed a similar format, with participants spending time sketching and gathering ideas from the mosaics during the first part of the morning. Each participant was given their own sketchbook to use however they wished while collecting ides. Challenges

• We did find that the short timescale, along with the fact that February-March is when secondary school art teachers are leading practical exams, did not work in our favour.

• We contacted our bank of existing young volunteers and found they were largely reluctant to take part – their interests being based in history and not art.

How might the project influence how you approach or deliver similar The young people then had the chance to experiment with different materials and approaches to each work in the future? medium, before coming up with a final design to create We have kept the artwork to place on display at in full in the afternoon session. Fishbourne in the near future as a way of celebrating The first session gave the young people the chance to the achievements of the participants and to promote create a small mosaic. The second was based around the opportunity for young people to complete their Arts sculptural work with clay, and the third resulted in Award here. textural acrylic on canvas painting. Successes While the scheme is orientated

• Staff that we were able to make contact with towards developing artistic skills, it were very interested in the project and keen to means that participants are able to promote the opportunity to their students. In respond to any museum collection many cases, schools were already delivering Arts Award to their students but saw these in a creative and interesting way. sessions as a way of complementing or running alongside existing work.

• Sessions were relaxed and informal. This gave the young people a chance to enjoy the Katrina Burton, Head of Learning, Roman Fishbourne Palace process of creating artwork without any added pressure. Guidance and expertise was provided by a member of our education team We hope to then use this experience to run Arts Award at Fishbourne, through a mixture of art workshops and (who is also a practicing artist), and a second opportunities for young people to get together, share member of staff was on hand to help out. The their skills and visit other venues. staff also created their own pieces of artwork during the sessions, following the same brief. Impact of the project This helped break down any sense of a teacher-pupil divide. Over the three taster sessions, 21 young people aged 11-15 attended: Sessions were relaxed and informal. 95% of participants found the sessions interesting. This gave the young people a 86% said they found sessions useful and fun chance to enjoy the process of 29% rated their session as brilliant

creating without any added All participants said they would recommend the course pressure. to their friends, with one stating that she would recommend it because “you don’t get to do things like this at school”.

The young people generally enjoyed the practical work, being able to experiment and directly see results. When recording the aspect they least enjoyed, Katrina Burton, Head of Learning, Fishbourne Roman Palace the participants felt they would have liked more time as well as further opportunities to extend their work. A few Final Thoughts also reported finding some of the skills a bit tricky to master. Through this project, we have been able to initiate Arts Award here at Fishbourne, which will mean that any From the point of view of the staff, the sessions were young people can have the opportunity to do their Arts an effective way to engage young people with the story Award in a non-school environment. We were pleased of Fishbourne Roman Palace, and we were pleased to to see a real mix of young people taking part n the see that the scheme gained momentum over the taster sessions – with high performing schools month. alongside students from schools in ‘areas of On a practical level, there was a wide range of abilities deprivation’. within the group, and some participants needed much We also hope that those students who have taken part more support than others. It also became apparent in the sessions independently will be able to share that the timing of the day (9.30am-4pm) was too long their experiences with their own schools, for some, while others would have preferred to have demonstrating the value of the Award to teachers and more time to finish their final pieces. peers alike.

We now have two staff trained as advisers for Bronze The staff also created their own and Silver levels, and Fishbourne Roman Palace is a pieces during the sessions, registered Arts Award provider. following the same brief. This There is an opportunity to reach out to young people using the Arts Award scheme. At the moment, the helped to break down any sense of scheme is orientated towards developing artistic skills, a teacher-pupil divide. but participants are able to respond to any museum collection in a creative and interesting way.

We found that many schools are already working with the Arts Award scheme in one way or another, so there is the possibility of museums offering opportunities for students to further their arts Katrina Burton, Head of Learning, Fishbourne Roman Palace experience outside of school, or for museums to offer their resources to schools interested in delivering Arts Meeting the project’s outcomes as a whole Award in a more dynamic way. • We have certainly developed our links with local secondary schools. We had an opportunity to build a relationship with some schools that have not visited us before, for example, The Regis School, and to develop Credits links with art departments in local schools Taken from: Project Evaluation and Report by where our contact had previously been purely Katrina Burton, Head of Learning, Fishbourne historical/classically-based in previous years. Roman Palace & Gardens We hope that through continuing to promote the Arts Award to other schools in the area, Edited by: Laura Lamb those links will become even stronger. Artswork [email protected]

• The young people involved in the taster sessions explored a range of different sources www.artswork.org.uk of inspiration. They explored the mosaics in many different ways – looking at motifs, colour, pattern, texture and design – and they also drew inspiration from artefacts on display. They sketched, photographed and used rubbings to capture their work. They also looked at contemporary artwork influenced by mosaic. They developed new skills in the process, including mosaic making, clay sculpture and introducing texture into paintings.