Check out these beautiful River Wye inspired tile panels made with the students at St Martins Primary School in Hereford.

Jon worked with every child in the school at the back end of the Summer term, encouraging them to roll the soft clay to make tiles. Low relief decoration, inspired by their experience of living in Hereford was modeled onto the surface and the whole effect painted with coloured slips.

At the end of the workshop sessions, the individual tiles were transported to the Pottery for drying, firing and glazing. Once out of the kilns the children’s work was assembled into collaborative fish, ducks and swans and finally attached to bespoke painted boards.

The finished panels were delivered to St Martins in October ready for installation on a huge wall above a busy stairwell. As soon as we have a photo we’ll share it right here on our website.

Nearly 10,000 people enjoyed tinkering with materials in The Maker Shack at the Cheltenham Science Festival 2018 – and nearly all of them designed and made a clay tile at the Eastnor Pottery station!

It was the second year running Olivia Clements requested the services of the Flying Potter so we knew what to expect in terms of sheer volume of participation….and we weren’t disappointed!

The event was exhausting and needed team Eastnor Pottery & The Flying Potter to work shifts. Sarah, Millie and Jon all did a couple of days but all agreed it would have been really, really hard work if it hadn’t been for the brilliant army of volunteer helpers.

Each station was designated a couple of extra hands who once had been briefed on the activity, set about their tasks with enthusiasm, initiative and understanding. They were brilliant!

We’ve worked with Bishops Cleeve Primary School for a number of years producing quality, collaborative ceramic masterpieces, most of which are proudly displayed through-out the school.

We thoroughly enjoy our visits and it appears the school do too! Here’s what Arts Development Officer Mrs Parks has to say about our relationship:

“Always polite and puts all at ease whether paid teaching staff, classroom assistants or the unpaid voluntary helpers who make such a difference to the children’s experience of clay. Jon is always totally responsive to ideas and suggestions from the teacher planning the day and he or his friendly & helpful staff, respond promptly and enthusiastically to all the administrative details that schools need.

Jon’s encouragement and gentle, open manner with the children never fails to put all at their ease and get the best outcomes possible.

They love his sense of fun and even the teachers forgave him his jokes! It is always evident that Jon has a wealth of experience working with children of all abilities and he seems to have an intuitive feeling for the best approaches to take with each individual. His enthusiasm is infectious and our children gain valuable memories or working with a professional artist who is happy to share his skills and passion for all things muddy!

It exceeded my expectation as the children were more original and Jon’s demonstration of different ways of forming the animals and borders were so clear that all the children had a range of choices to make and were able to adapt the techniques shown to suit their animal and their own ability.

I just know the highlight hasn’t happened yet…it is the moment that the children see their fired pieces and those wide eyes and happy faces make it all worth while!”

Mrs Parkes is also an extremely talented maker in her own right. Examples of her work can be seen here.

Our lovely community arts apprentices Aimme and Immy working with Sarah on the final touches of a stunning tile panel made by children, parents and staff at Washwood Heath Nursery School in Birmingham.

Although the practical sessions are of paramount importance and integral to our practice, it’s worth pointing out the value of preparation and after-care we attach to every project.

We reckon for every minute spent working with somebody hands-on, there is at least a minute of preparation and after-care.

This collaboration will be hung on the outside wall of the new Clover Lea Annex building designed for the provision of the under 2’s.

Check out these ‘book’ tile panels inspired by children’s literature we co-created with Meadows first School in Bromsgrove. We spent x2 industrious days working with the entire school, each child producing a single tile. The tiles have been assembled onto boards and will adorn the front of the school for community and visitors alike to admire when they visit the school.

A similar project with an equally satisfying outcome was the Damson Tree tile panel made with Damson Wood First School in Solihull. This project was initiated to celebrate the schools 50^th birthday and the resulting ceramic masterpiece made by the children will hang in the reception hall.

Nursery= Elmer the patchwork elephant

Reception = The Gruffalo

Year 1 = The Tiger from The tiger who came to Tea

Year 2 = Winnie the Witch

Year 3 = The BFG

Year 4 = George from George’s Marvellous Medicine – another Roald Dahl Book

We’ve done two days of workshops in school, brilliantly assisted  by x4 YR8 students from neighboring Parkside Middle School (they really were very helpful indeed!)

All the tiles have been created and are currently drying out ready for their bisque and glaze firing. Once they have emerged from the kiln we’ll mount them onto boards and get them photographed and up on the blog.

If you don’t know, Tewkesbury is famed for its many historic alley ways connecting the main streets. Warder’s alley runs from High St by M & Co. The front was rebuilt in the 1970’s in concrete. It is not an attractive site, and has problems with puddles and no lighting – perfect to be livened up with an eye catching ceramic wall mural.

During the next couple of months, Sarah will be visiting Alderman Knight to work with groups of pupils. The students will also get the opportunity to visit Eastnor Pottery to work on the design.

The scheme is being generously funded by the Leonard Cheshire Disability Trust.

Each child created an individual tile representing one of the School’s values with each year group responsible for a different colour of the rainbow.

The finished panel will be hung in the school hall for everybody to admire and as a constant reminder of what can be achieved through everybody working together.