‘Whizz-popping’ Artsweek inspires Thame pupils

ARTSWEEK at John Hampden Primary School, Thame, has been a’ whizz-popping’ experience this year, with the theme inspired by the stories of Roald Dahl!

John Hampden Primary School’s giant visitor, The BFG

With a personal appearance from the BFG, all the school’s dreams came true, as the hall was transformed into a chocolate landscape good enough to eat! A chocolate waterfall cascaded from the hall wall, with a pink jelly Sea Horse boat delivering the winners of the Golden tickets to Willy Wonka’s factory at JHS!

Fantastic Mr.Fox was up to his old tricks, overseeing the activities and planning his next escapade, and The Enormous Crocodile was hungrily lurking on the lookout for a tasty snack!

A wide range of artistic activities were provided for the pupils to enable the sweet transformation, including big-eared BFG biscuits, decorative dream catchers, Enormous Crocodile clay sculptures, spectacular spoon characters, Roly Poly Bird finger-puppets, a James and the Giant Peach mobile, as well as the old favourites of painting, drawing and junk modelling all things Roald Dahl.

The children also carried the theme on in class with a cross curricular week inspired by Roald Dahl’s stories.

“The John Hampden staff and children were like a packet of Wonka’s all-sorts on the final dress-up Friday of the week,” reported Jackie Nichols, the school’s Arts Coordinator, “with a family of Fantastic Foxes, an army of BFG’s, a factory of Willy Wonka’s and a pick-and-mix of Oompah Loompahs!

“As always John Hampden has seen a wealth of parents, grandparents, governors, guardians, carers, artists, teachers and teaching assistants, old and new, volunteer to support the children in their sweet-toothed artwork, with a multitude of helpers (over 50!), who came to help bring our ideas to life! The John Hampden 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!

“The staff also set the children a challenge in the Artsweek Quiz, where children had to match a Mr Twit-style fake beard to the right staff member who made it, in the ‘Who’s Beard is This?’ competition, complete with a tasty Roald Dahl prize for the winning entry!

“At the end of the week, JHS friends and family were given a Golden Ticket to take a tour of our JHS Chocolate Factory of art at the Friday Artsweek Fair-Trade Café finale.

“We were caught in a dream for a while and it will take half-term to recover from our sugar rush, but healthy eating will return to JHS and we will enjoy our hall in the weeks to come as a reminder of our unexpected sweet adventure!” concluded Ms Nichols.