Art in the curriculum to give students creative outlet

Liverpool Hospital School staff immersed themselves in art to expand creative curriculum offerings for their students. Alyssa Terese reports.

Four female teachers holding art works and standing in front of a wall with other art works Four female teachers holding art works and standing in front of a wall with other art works
Image: Principal Kaye Howe with Liverpool Hospital School teachers and staff members Lauren Wood, Kelly Jezercic and Lisa Annous.

Four Liverpool Hospital School staff members joined more than 95,000 NSW public school teachers for school development days in anticipation of Day 1, Term 1 2025.

Spending two days at the Campbelltown Arts Centre, the women were taken through immersive learning experiences by Creative Learning and Engagement Officer and former department visual arts teacher Celeste Wrona.

Principal Kaye Howe said the immersive style of the development day was a new experience for the group and had sparked excitement and taught skills that will be immediately implemented into the school setting.

“The workshops provided us with ideas of what we can present to our students in our settings – whether that be in the classroom or in a room for a child who is stuck in bed all day – and how we can differentiate the learning for Kindergarten to Year 12 in the one classroom,” Ms Howe said.

“It was helpful to experience for ourselves what our students might be experiencing when we deliver similar lessons to them.”

Day one started with an immersion in the centre’s Zen Garden which was followed by a watercolour workshop and colouring technique workshop where paintings and artworks were created of the koi fish just experienced in the garden.

Day two was a guided tour of the gallery’s Marikit Santiago’s exhibition followed by the creation of a continuous line drawing, self-portraits on flattened cardboard boxes using oil-based crayons and natural materials, and an exploration into how to keep students engaged and involved when creating art.

The idea to focus the school development days on visual art came from Ms Howe seeing how other schools were implementing art programs and identifying that Liverpool Hospital School could be stronger delivering in this space.

“We’ve always offered art, but it’s been more structured art educational resources – step by step on how to create your own Picasso portrait or the like,” Ms Howe said.

“After the two-day workshops, we have extended our skill set in the art space and will now be able to offer a range of activities such as exploring texture, crayon rubbings, discovering sounds and connecting them to paper.

“The ideas have been sparked and the teachers are now more confident. It wasn’t our strength before, but I think it’s now become a strength.”

Ms Howe is passionate about supporting students who have artistic talent and providing all students with a creative outlet and avenue of expression.

“I think implementing more immersive art techniques into our school is going to increase student voice and student agency at a time when voice and agency has been taken off the children,” she said.

Four femaie teachers sitting around a desk and creating artwork Four femaie teachers sitting around a desk and creating artwork
Image: Liverpool Hospital school staff getting creative on development day

Director Educational Leadership (DEL) Liverpool Principals’ Network Peter Rouse said that the session was one of the best professional learning experiences he’d attended in his 30 years as an educator, with teachers taken through the experience as though they were students and unpacked the explicit teaching that was occurring.

“It was a great teaching and learning experience because the staff had to put themselves in the shoes of their students and focus on how to enrich the lives of those who aren’t necessarily able to get out of their hospital bed for long periods of time,” Mr Rouse said.

“I could see straight away that the activities they were doing would work well within the Liverpool Hospital School environment and have armed the teachers with new skills they can implement straight away.”

As a former art teacher, Mr Rouse knows the benefits of artistic expression and the holistic effect it can have on student learning.

“Often when you engage students in the arts, it gives them an avenue to bring their inner world out and they start to express how their feeling about the situation they’re currently in, which is especially important with students struggling with their health,” Mr Rouse said.

“It also helps teachers to develop an understanding of what their students are thinking and feeling, which increases opportunity for them to engage with them in other parts of the curriculum by approaching learning with a sense of comfort and greater understanding of the student and their needs.

“It also creates a great sense of hope for the student which is very powerful.”


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