Alongside artist educator Amy Leung, teachers across our Poplar Consortium explored playful approaches to drawing, sculpture and painting.

Artist Educator Amy Leung led a shared teacher CPD (Continued Professional Development) for staff members across our six Poplar Consortium schools, focused on playful and exploratory artmaking approaches with Early Years and and KS1 SEND children.

I learnt ways to use different scales to work from – creating big structures and encouraging children to build on each other’s work, instead of using a blank canvas.

Teacher

Amy started the workshop off with exploring personal memories, inspiring teachers to reflect on their own early experiences of play and creativity. This sparked conversations around the benefits of how open-ended, imaginative activities can engage young learners more deeply. Using different education theories and principles, the workshop demonstrated how sensory, hands-on play can support children’s communication and foster independence.

Teachers rotated through three activity stations—drawing, painting, and sculpture— each with fun materials and prompts to use, designed to introduce self-guided activities.

For example, teachers transformed the classroom by building their own den with furniture, bamboo sticks, string and organza fabric!

‘Amy encouraged reflection by asking teachers to share childhood play memories, helping them step into their students’ shoes.’

Support artist

Collaboration was a big part of the session. Teachers exchanged ideas and worked together to create activities with their students’ needs in mind. All participants expressed to have gained valuable new skills, including…

• A better understanding of how to use a range of materials
• Plenty of inspiration of ways to nurture independent creative play in their classrooms
• Effective differentiation while ensuring language progression and skill development

I will share [these ideas] with other colleagues and use these activities during my SEND group session.

Teacher

Our teacher CPD sessions focus on building specific skills, activity planning, and confidence in classroom delivery.

Learn more about how our CPD’s can inspire and build confidence in your team here: Teacher CPD – Bow Arts