During the month of May, I’ve had the pleasure and privilege of spending 5 days with staff and students at Sunfield School in the West Midlands.

Sunfield is a residential special school supporting young people aged 6-19yrs with severe and complex learning difficulties.

Clay is such a universal and accessible medium no matter what age or ability everybody can leave their mark…and marks were well and truly made on this short clay residency! We smeared squidged and threw our way through bags of the stuff, each student adopting an individual and interesting approach to the material.

As always the potter’s wheel was a firm favourite with some students displaying interest and focus rarely seen in other activities.

We finished the residency off with a celebratory ‘smoke firing’ in the idylic school grounds. This involved building a small fire, stacked with some of the students work they had previously made. Once lit (the risk assessment was a thorough one!) the flames and smoke decorated the vessels leaving gorgeous marks and shades of grey and black (see above photo).

I thoroughly my time at Sunfield and hope to be back there again soon.