Creative Arts Block Round Up

The Creative Arts help students grow in their physical, social, cognitive, and emotional development. It also allows them to practice imagination and experiment as they invent new ways to be creative, as well as developing creative problem-solving skills.

Consider everything around you, the building you’re sitting in, the watch on your hand, the clothing on your back. What about the music you listen to in the morning or that film you love to curl up to on a Saturday? The very thing that connects all these things is the Creative Arts!

Well, we certainly have plenty of creativity here at BISL!

In wanting to keep our community as safe as possible, instead of a physical art exhibition, this year we hosted a virtual exhibition, which was equally as fantastic - a real highlight of Block 3. The exhibition showcased some of the excellent work produced in art from Year 7 through to Year 10.

Showing work from a variety of themes such as natural forms, street art, bugs and identity, the exhibition invites you to walk around virtually and view all the talent here at BISL!

Students across Secondary were asked to recreate famous artworks or album covers using photography only. So many of our students engaged in this activity and had lots of fun along the way. As you can see, the results are fantastic!

To view more of their excellent work, take a tour in around the garden of our art exhibition above.

As this year's BISL Christmas Cover, in a brilliant whole-school collaboration, our Performing Arts Team proudly presents: BISL Does Merry Christmas Everybody!

A big thank you to Mr Hulse for all his hard work in recording and putting it together for us all to enjoy. After all, the best way to spread Christmas cheer is singing loud for all to hear!

In form time Secondary students took part in a music themed Kahoot quiz. At the end of the quiz, students were ranked depending on how many questions they answered correctly and the speed in which they answered. Students gaining 1^st to 5^th were awarded House Points.

Four windows in the assembly hall were decorated (one for each House) to the theme of Compassion at Christmas. As one of the BISL values, Compassion is a huge part of our daily life at school, especially during this holiday season. Students in Secondary depicted the value of compassion, through a Christmas themed window art display.

Winner to be announced soon, so watch this space!

During this block, students across the school have been working hard in Music and Performing Arts to produce performances for the Winter Shows. We have really showcased some of the amazing talent across the whole school with singing performances to dances and much more. Check out the Winter Show playlist which is now available on YouTube for you to enjoy!

The COBIS Art Competition is a brilliant opportunity for young artists to compete internationally and showcase their talent. This year the theme is “Looking ahead” and in Secondary, students have been planning and designing their pieces ready for judging and submitting in January.

Primary students have also been invited to take part in the competition and entries will have their work presented as an online exhibition next year. 3 pieces of work will be chosen from each Key Stage and the winners will be announced in March 2022. Good luck to all!

Students in Primary thoroughly enjoyed learning about and taking part in ‘Guess the Artist’ activity. Each week, students learned about famous creative people of the world during weekly assemblies, as part of the Creative Arts block. At the end of the term, staff members dressed as the mystery artists and students were encouraged to spot the person, ask them question and guess who they represented. Did you guess correctly?

To celebrate the end of term and the end of the creative arts block, students in Key Stage 3 have been producing cross-curricular projects by combining mathematics and art.

Year 7 and 8 students learnt how to use a compass and a protractor to construct various geometrical shapes, including triangles, squares, rectangles and patterns inscribed in circles.

In 7B, students designed a Christmas tree inspired by Yayoi Kusama’s pumpkin. They constructed and cut equilateral triangles, squares and circles out of coloured paper and assembled the art piece together on A1 cardboard paper. The result was a fantastic piece of artwork that is proudly displayed in room 316.

Year 8A and 8B designed a graffiti-style Christmas holiday caption with ornaments that were decorated with patterns inscribed in circles. Their captions had typical graffiti 3D effects such as drop shadows, contrasting colours and overlapping letters. Some students included creative backgrounds to their caption, including a fireplace, theatre and winter wonderland.

In Year 9, students needed to use their knowledge of constructions and compass use to form a tetrahedron. Have a look at the process and final outcomes.

Each morning in Secondary this block, students have learnt about something important that happened on that day in music. We’ve enjoyed listening to both new and old music related to that date. What a nice way to start the day!

For Anti-Bullying Awareness Week, children in Early Years were learning about what it is to be a kind friend. All the creative activities were focused on ‘kind’ words and actions which included friendship pasta bracelets and friendship cards with hearts.

Then, as part of their Shopping topic, our EY students had lost of fun learning about shopping and created their own shopping baskets using the weaving technique with an A3 weaving template (card) and strips of paper to weave in and out. They also created large-scale fruit and vegetable artwork. Using large shape templates of fruit and vegetables, they showed off their mixed media skills by working with collage. Students then identified which colour was needed for the fruit and vegetables. In keeping with the theme, students in Early Years have also been making prints with carrots and potatoes.

And finally, getting in the festive spirit, our little learners practiced their cutting skills by snipping coloured paper to produce beautiful snowflakes.

To celebrate the Creative Arts, our Year 5s and 6s also enjoyed a very educational outing to the National Gallery in the city centre earlier this block, gathering lots of useful information and ideas for their Creative Me Topic this Block, and were excellent ambassadors to BISL.

What a brilliant theme to finish a successful first Term here at BISL!