Children’s playground art show is good, bad and ugly

PUPILS and parents at a Henley school had a surprise waiting for them when they found the playground decorated with artwork.

Children in years 5 and 6 at Trinity Primary School arrived early at 8am on Thursday last week to set up an exhibition inspired by Banksy.

One of their class topics this term was “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” and the pupils were asked to consider what is art and when it becomes graffiti.

As part of the project, they made their own creations. Many went with a festive theme, creating giant Quality Street sweets and snowmen out of shoeboxes, while a bench was decorated to look like Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer.

Others decided to follow the example of the mystery street artist. Rupert Pusey-Arsyad used fabric and spray paint to create a piece of graffiti. It featured the outline of Father Christmas handing out presents but with the word “presence”.

Jessie Duncan made Santa’s sleigh out of cardboard, surrounded by shoebox presents.

Teaching assistants Christine Mortimer and Rebecca Chilvers helped the children with their ideas. Mrs Mortimer said: “When we do art, sometimes we do drawing and not all the children enjoy it, or it is not their strength. With this project, it was just a case of doing what they wanted to do and they got really excited.

“You don’t have to be amazing at art, you just have to be creative and use your imagination. We couldn’t do anything indoors because of covid and the idea of doing something in the playground worked really well.”