This post is written by Lexi Earl.

During my time on this project I have witnessed many different approaches to the teaching of art to young people. At Richard Cloudesley School in Islington, I was impressed by the various ways art teacher Lucy Pook has adapted her teaching in order to allow her students to experience art, and make art. Richard Cloudesley is a school for young people with physical disabilities and additional sensory needs. Many are only partially verbal, others use sign language and there are clever communication books students can use to explain their needs and wants to teachers, staff, and carers.

While I was at Richard Cloudesley, I got to experience just how this communication works during an art class. The class was focusing on the work of Robert Rauschenberg, and had already begun creating multi-media art works. That day the class was going to create clay figurines and then make tyre tracks to add to these particular works, in the style of Rauschenberg’s Monogram 1988-56. Lucy Pook, the school art teacher, put up a photograph of Rauschenberg’s work on the projector. She explained to the class that the idea is to get “lots and lots of layers” on the work.

After identifying their work, students and staff all gathered around the two tables in the centre of the room and Lucy provided each student with a piece of clay. Each student was tasked with choosing an animal to make from the clay. There was music playing and there were adults (teaching assistants and carers) helping and working with all the children. The atmosphere was relaxed and everyone talked easily. I worked with one student who uses a ‘pod book’ to communicate. These books are made up of rows and columns related to various themes, and each block contains a particular picture or word. You read down the column and then along the row, giving the student time to respond and say what they are thinking or want. The girl I worked with eventually told me she wanted to make a parrot, as these are her favourite. (One of the other teaching assistants warned me that sometimes she just likes to go through the book, saying no to everything, as a form of entertainment). Some of the children simply held the clay while the teachers created the creatures they’d chosen, while others shaped the clay into animal shapes, and some students got to poke eyes and other details into the clay. Everyone was involved to some degree, depending on their fine motor skills. Eventually there was a whole troop of clay figurines left to dry on the windowsill.

During my time at Richard Cloudesley, I spoke to Lucy about this collaboration-as-art I had participated in. She explained that she thinks it is important but that:

“I’m also aware that I don’t want to take the projects away from them and it is a constant challenge. Even after three years if you are working with a student who takes a long time to respond you have to rein yourself in and not do too much for them. I’m not sure how successful we are at that but we are supporting each other’s projects. My favourite bit of those projects is including the students from the other school because the work that we’ve done with them has been for big events and I think, with our students, and especially doing kinesthetic stuff where you are all moving around together, they get very enthusiastic about it”.

Lucy was clearly aware of the need for patience as part of the collaborative work the students and staff did. There was also a need for flexibility, which is how Lucy approached her planning.

“Whatever I plan to do I leave it so open so that I can see how they are responding and I’ve just realised that that is the only way that you can do it really. So within a lesson structure we have a window of time when everyone is supported and I will try and do most of the activities then. I’ve been teaching literacy a lot but I’ve also wanted to look at design and performance art and the process of performance. I’ve been trying to create projects because our groups are so mixed and we have profound and multiple learning difficulties in with some quite able students. So it is quite disparate and I try to create something that everyone can access on some level and then we’ll see what happens. I leave things to chance to some extent and that is often where the nicer things happen actually”.

Art lessons at Richard Cloudesley were therefore approached in a particular way, clearly focused on student need and interest. Lucy is able to adapt her programme of learning to meet student requirements.