On Saturday we welcomed 90 Year 5 and 6 girls to our school to enjoy a specialist Art outreach workshop with our Art department; Mr Preedy, Mrs Wilson and Mrs Joy. Thirty primary schools were represented from Wiltshire, Gloucestershire, Bristol and Bath (including our Juniors) and the young artists gained a feel for what life in the Royal High Art School is like.

Their initial task was to make a pencil likeness of themselves on A4 cartridge paper and once they had settled into the task of looking they were then asked to make a mono-print self-portrait on tissue paper. A high point of any day at the Royal High School is when the (famous) cookies come out and after everyone was suitably refreshed the ‘students-for-a-day’ headed back into the studio to start collaging onto pre-cut blank paddles. Soon through the magic of art, hand-held mirrors were emerging in the studios and as intrigued parents visited the studios to see what creativity had been let loose, the mono-print self-portraits were glued onto the mirrors. With parents admiring their daughters’ creativity and some clearly a little envious they had not been participating, the morning ended with happy and enthused young artists.

Mr Preedy our inspirational Director of Art and Aesthetics said; ‘it is always a delight to share in art and creativeness with young engaged minds, exploring well understood methods more deeply and exposing people to new processes and ideas. Everyone had a wonderful time, and we hope that our young artists left inspired to pursue their love of Art in the future.’

I would particularly like to thank our amazing volunteers from the Senior School. With over 25 girls from year 7-13 keen to come into school on Saturday morning to help with the workshop it was particularly nice to receive lovely feedback from parents about our super RHS ambassadors. One particularly nice comment was:

“Thank you for inviting * to take part in the work shop on Saturday. Also thank you to your lovely pupil for showing us around your beautiful school. It has really inspired * and has encouraged her to be more creative and imaginative.”

We are very grateful to our super Art department and also to the girls who acted as role models, tour guides, helpers and were just generally ‘RHS super humans’!