Education

Little Hayes Nursery School, Bristol

For the past three years I have been artist in residence at Little Hayes Nursery School funded by Creative Partnerships.

During this time I have worked one day a week with both staff and children exploring creativity in the whole school environment.

Headteacher Soo Rolfe, Little Hayes Nursery School Evaluation of Creative Partnerships project (Exploring Horizons 2005-2006)
“The children responded well to having an artist in residence who is so good at tapping into their interests and respecting their wonderful ideas”
“Rod was very sensitive to their needs and encouraged them to join in as and when they were ready”
“Parents reported that the children were taking home the new experiences they had enjoyed and that they felt the work had had a longlasting impact on them.”
“Rod was very good at making relationships with the children (we have 50 children each morning and 50 children each afternoon) and some of the children have formed close attachments with him. He caught the imagination of the children and much innovative work evolved from the introduction of lots of different types of materials and the workshops”.

The drawings in this book reflect and describe the activities which took place during the creative partnership of artist Rodney Harris and Little Hayes Nursery School during the 2005/06 academic year. The inspiration for the book came from the Goat Island Performance Groups published book “Schoolbook 2”, which suggests we “Keep a kind of journal you’ve never kept before” . This idea clarified my desire to document what went on during the residency in a way that did not involve writing a dry evaluation text, but to produce a book which people might want to use as inspiration in engaging young children in creative play. Following a conversation with Dr Nick Clough from Bristol University about the collaboration he suggested that I was creating the format within which open ended creative activity of many different sorts might happen. What follows are some ideas for different formats.