- September 6, 2010 13:53 to November 11, 2010 18:30

March 12, 2010

Face to Face

Light Show

Mrs Culek planned an action-packed day at the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery on the 4^th March for Year 5 children. The workshop was run by artist Lucy Dagger who guided them trough the stages of making a press print , how to incise the plate and ink it up with rollers before the really exciting bit of making the final print! The children examined the work of Arts and Crafts artist William Morris and William de Morgan who designed the most beautiful tiles.

A visit to the Bridget Riley flashback exhibition proved very popular and an effective way of making you feel dizzy and sick as the op art pictures painted in the 60’s played tricks on the eyes and brain.  Cheaper than a trip to Alton Towers but not such a good idea just after lunch!!

The final section of the visit was a series of videos about how art is made, showing the processes of printmaking, painting, ceramics, drawing, jewellery and sculpture. This latter category made Mrs Culek very excited as the artist demonstrating in the video was Rob Perry, her old tutor!

March 12, 2010

On Friday 5^th March the dining room at Hallfield looked like a set from a Harry Potter movie! Wizards, witches, magicians, pixies and elves queued for their lunches with a multitude of pink fairies – not all of them pupils!  No we hadn’t all swallowed a magic potion or been the victim of a Potter spell, it was part of the activities for World Book Week and the theme was magic. Sean Connolly, in a non-magic world the voice of Horrid Henry, came disguised as a wizard and told stories  – ‘Where the Wild Things Are’, ‘Winnie the Witch and the Dragon’, ‘Room on a Broom’ and ‘Snow White’, to a captivated audience of Pre-Prep children who took  a book token home to buy their own magic story book.   Who says children don’t like reading  anymore?

March 12, 2010

Was it the lure of a fish and chip supper or a streak of sado-masochism that dragged us back to an evening of humiliation and disbelief that Mr Tobin can continue to dream up such impossibly hard questions? Does he inhabit a parallel universe that has a completely alternative bank of knowledge to us? How could he be so cruel as to combine a geography round with a working knowledge of the World Cup teams and venues?

The PA Committee who usually come last with such lame excuses as having to man the bar, go for the fish and chips, hand out the salt,vinegar and ketchup came fifth, only three points behind the winning team ‘Team GB’ (nothing to do with nationality, more to do with being George Bennett’s father).It was a close run thing at the finish with the staff team of Mrs Culek, Miss Smith, Mr Florance and supportive other halves only half a point behind the winners.

The reason for the meteoric rise in the fortunes of the Committee team was due to the foresight of Mrs Shackleton in inviting Miss Thompson to join them, adding her vast wealth of general knowledge and trivia (she owes a lot of it to her 11 year old godson and watching a lot of television) to their more limited range! Who else would have recognised the theme tune of Hetty Wainthropp Investigates quite so quickly or been able to unravel the connection between the voice of Bugs Bunny, a book by Jane Austen and a film goer’s guide?

Mr Stotts invited a Canadian guest who also contributed by answering questions on anything vaguely North American and who couldn’t believe we would put ourselves through all that agony on a Friday night after a gruelling week at school!

Feel you may like to join us with a team next year? We’d love to see you, but Miss Thompson is ours, so hands off!  

If you’d like to know the answer to the brain teaser I’m sure she would explain it to you!