Creative Partnerships London West:
Horsenden Secondary School
"FACE TO
FACE"
PROJECT
OVERVIEW
Freelance Photographers Eileen Perrier and Claire Haddon
worked with all the Year 5 students to produce a final
visual piece that will be placed in the school’s entrance.
Kerry Shilling, the Creative Partnerships Coordinator and a
Year 5 class teacher, worked closely with creative partners
throughout the project.
Creative Partners had 8 sessions with different groups of
students each time. The sessions involved a wide range of
activities that gave the students the opportunity to become
familiar with different styles of photography. Students
worked as a class, in small and large groups. Among other
things, they took group photos of fellow stu¬dents,
portraits of school members, exposed photos in a dark room,
and made film-less photos. As a final piece, students took
portraits of school members (teachers, teaching assistants,
cleaning staff, fellow students etc.) and then edited in
Pho¬toshop, primarily by the creative partners.
Our Research team had the opportunity to follow most of the
creative sessions. We also had the opportunity to collect
video testimonies from students, the Creative Partnerships
Coordinator and the Creative Partners.
OBJECTIVES
1. Produce a large visually arresting product that will be
displayed at the school’s entrance.
2. Give the students ownership of their new school building
through a visual piece of work.
3. Give students the opportunity to work with a positive
role model from the wider community.
PROCESS
• Freelance photographers worked with all the Year 5
students to create the final visual piece.
• 95 students were involved.
• Students had the chance to see different ways of how
photography works.
• Many members of the school community were photographed
for the final piece.
REFLECTIONS
“I would
like to go outside and take pictures with different people
and not with teachers all the time, it’s nice to interact
with different people”
- Year 5 student
“I think it’s been such a positive
experience working with Claire and Eileen… and Liz the Head
has said to them ‘we love you coming in’, I love them
coming in, and the students love them coming in and it’s
just been so positive, that I think it sets the precedent
for every other creative practitioner to come in…so I hope
all our future projects will be like that”.
- Creative Partnerships Coordinator