During the month of October, we celebrate British Black History Month. In school, the children will be learning about a new inspirational black Briton every day. They will discuss the amazing things that these people have achieved and the challenges they have faced. The individuals we are looking at are from a variety of eras. Some were from a very long time ago, such as ex-slave and abolitionist Ottobah Cugoano (late 1700s), and some are from modern day, such as gymnast Simone Biles.
Reception
In Reception, we have really enjoyed reading the story ‘Coming to England’ by Floella Benjamin. This is a true story which describes what it was like to move from your home in Trinidad to England in 1960 as a 10- year-old child. We explored the differences between England and Trinidad and used maps to find out where Trinidad is in the world. We discussed the journey the family took by boat and explored the feelings of moving somewhere else in the world. We were sad to read that initially people in England were not kind to Floella and we talked about how we would welcome someone new to our school or from a different country. The children all came up with wonderful, kind ideas, from going up to them and saying hello to inviting them to their birthday party.
We also enjoyed the opportunity to find out more about the black artist Chris Ofili. Chris Ofili is known for creating artwork using natural materials, and even sometimes incorporating elephant dung into his works! The children gathered natural materials on a welly walk (thankfully no dung!) and created a beautiful piece of shared artwork.
Year 3
In Year 3, we have celebrated Black History Month by creating artwork inspired by British born Nigerian, Yinka Shonibare. He produced a large piece of art called the “British Library’, which contains 6,328 books covered in fabric, with the names of people who have contributed to black history and culture. Inspired by examples of fabric, we created our own patterns which we used to cover boxes to make it look like our own library, ‘The St. Alban’s Library.’
Below, children from Year 6 have written about why they found these individuals inspirational. Year 1 children have worked in groups to create portraits of these people, through using a printing technique to transfer aspects of an image to their own paper and then they added in details using pens and ink.
Year 5
We have been learning about the artist Lois Mailou Jones. Lois started her career as a textile designer and often sold her bold fabric creations to department stores. However, one day somebody told her that a black person wasn’t capable of producing such beautiful designs. This prompted Lois to switch her focus from textile design to the fine arts where she could sign her name to her work and no one could doubt her ever again.
We have been inspired by Lois' work and have created some mask art work in the same style as Lois used. The children used coloured oil pastel to create the main image then coloured over it with black oil pastel, this was then scraped off to ‘age’ the picture. This technique is called sgraffito.
YEAR 6 - As part of this project, we have been learning the story of Walter Tull. Despite the hardship of losing both parents as a child and being raised in an orphanage, he played football for Tottenham Hotspur, Clapton Town, Northampton and Rangers. During the First World War, he rose through the ranks to become Second Lieutenant and was recognised for his calmness and bravery in the face of enemy fire. He became the first black officer to command troops in the British Army during the First World War but was sadly killed in action in 1918. His determination to succeed was inspiring to hear.
Year 1 children have worked in groups to create portraits using a printing technique to transfer aspects of an image to their own paper and then they added in details using pens and ink.
Reception have been inspired to make a group drawing thanking God for all that he has made and to made paintings thanking God for all the different people living on earth. They laid hands in a circle and noticed that they all have lots of different skin tones. They talked about how good it is that we are each made different and special. They agreed we should always be kind to one another.
In Year Three, for Black History Month, we have been inspired by the famous Black British artist Stephen Wiltshire. This wonderful artist has the amazing talent of creating detailed cityscape sketches, all from memory. Stephen was diagnosed with autism from a very young age and was unable to speak until the age of 9. By the age of 13 years old, he had published his first book of his paintings and continued to travel around the world sketching famous cityscapes. His largest was 10m long of Tokyo, which he completed from memory in just 8 days! In 2006, he was awarded an MBE from the Queen in recognition of his services to Art. We have been inspired by his work and talent to create our own cityscape of our beautiful town of Macclesfield.