Leaps of Imagination at Drew Primary School

We delivered our first session with 30 bright and inspiring Year 5 pupils in Drew Primary School this afternoon. We were very impressed with their map reading skills and the wild and wonderful ideas they all had for being joyful in the streets, and ideas for how to make the new playable landscape under the DLR on the North Woolwich Road an exciting place that they and their siblings will want to play.

The session began with and introduction to the ways Ashley and I work and a short discussion on what art can be. We looked at the map of the locality and children proved that they are experts on their local area, when we asked them about how they see the area under the DLR they described it as

Cold

Grey

Freaky

Echoey

Smelly

Scary

Noisy

We considered the ways they already use the streets and public spaces in ways that are joyful and creative without the use of swings and slides and we discovered that they have many funny, adventurous and playful activities they like to do as they move from A-B. The children came up with many many ideas and from these we edited short snappy instructions that would make good signs. They then made signs using letters we had previously photographed around the local area on places like the Brick Lane Music Hall, the S&M super market, the hoardings under the DLR and signs around the school. Here are a few of the signs the children made, to encourage more people to try more fun activities in the streets. Please come along on the 19th March to try these activities yourselves!