Thame school’s been ‘out of this world!’

ARTSWEEK at John Hampden School has been an ‘out of this world’ experience this year, with the theme of Space, Aliens and Star Wars as their guiding force!

The Space theme saw the school hall transformed into an artistic galaxy far, far away, home to a pink planet and a green moon, inhabited by Ewoks, aliens, Wookies, droids and the odd princess. Darth Vader’s menacing presence was felt as he presided over the proceedings as a giant wall hanging and Tim Peak could be seen on his spacewalk, narrowly avoiding the Millennium Falcon and the Enterprise as they zig-zagged between the planets from our own solar system, speeding through the night sky.

The children took part in a wide range of artistic endeavours to enable the out of this world transformation, including printmaking of zodiac signs and planets, photography of fantasy space scenes, clay modelling of aliens, sewn Ewoks and planets, space marbling, painting and the ever popular junk modelling. They also researched the real spacemen and women who explore space today, British Astronaut, Tim Peak, who is currently circling the earth in the International Space Station, being one of the inspirations for the Artsweek theme.

The John Hampden staff and children were a diverse crew on the final dress-up Friday of the week, with a multitude of Darth Vaders, Princess Leias, Ewoks, aliens, spacemen and even Arthur Dent and The Men in Black to keep everyone in line! 

Once again, John Hampden school enroled an army of volunteer parents, grandparents, governors, guardians, carers, artists, teachers and teaching assistants, old and new, to support the children in their artwork (over 64!), who went along to help bring the pupil’s ideas to life. The school’s PTFA provided the means to fund the week, with a generous donation which enabled the school to provide a wealth of artistic experiences and resources for the children to enjoy.

As well as the arts and craft work, the staff set the children a challenge in the Artsweek Quiz, where they had to match the droid or alien to the right staff member who made it in the ‘Is this your droid or alien?’ competition, complete with a Star Wars prize for the winning entries.

At the end of the week, JHS friends and family were invited to take a small step for man and a giant leap for mankind into a fantasy galaxy, journeying through space-dust clouds and meteorites, past lightsaber battles and Storm Troopers to cross the final frontier and find the culmination of the school’s artistic endeavours at the Artsweek Fair-trade Café as a Friday finale.

“We were ‘lost in space’ for a while and it will take half-term to recover from our ‘out of this world’ experience, but the Force is strong at JHS and we will enjoy our hall in the weeks to come as a reminder of our inter-galactic adventure!” said the school’s Arts Co-ordinators, Jackie Nichols and Clare Field.