Spratton Hall win The DSWF Schools' Global Canvas Art & Poetry Competition 2015

Published by Spratton Hall on Friday 20th of March 2015

Spratton Hall entered the David Shepherd Wildlife Foundation Competition along with 2000 other schools from all around the world and Spratton Hall was delighted to be awarded 1st place. The title was 'We Can Heal Our World' and this theme had to be interpreted by filling a wall space 6x6ft and a table 6ftx2ft using art, poetry, sculpture and words to create a mini-exhibition.

200 Spratton Hall pupils were involved in our piece making it truly collaborative, led by Mrs Julie Moreton, Head of Art at Spratton. The pupils shared thoughts and explored world issues surrounding environmental degradation from a global perspective. Pupils took control of the process, collating lists of ecological challenges, health, social and economic pressures that are borne in the developed and undeveloped world and also tackled the question of climate change and political will for change. The research and work culminated in a mixed media project which included their poetry, stories, words, drawings, paintings, plaster casts, ceramics, papier-m�ché and cartography to express their determination to create a sustainable future where life can flourish in harmony with the environment.

We were one of 15 schools that were shortlisted to exhibit at the Natural History Museum on March 19th. 10 of our pupils travelled down to London with Mrs Moreton and they had an enjoyable morning putting up our exhibition and looking at the other entries. Two of our pupils, James Langham and Jessica Cressey-Jones gave a 3 minute presentation to the judges about Spratton Hall's piece and we were delighted to be given first place.

A huge honour to be chosen to win from so many outstanding entries and a big endorsement of the hard work put into the exhibition by so many of our pupils. The prize of being given the adoption of an elephant for a year by the David Shepherd Wildlife Foundation will ensure that the thoughts and feelings raised during this project of 'We Can Heal the World' will stay fresh in the pupils' minds.