Every year children throughout the school are given a chance to design and create a Christmas themed card in their art lessons. These are then printed and sold to St John's families with money going towards the Parents' Association's chosen charity at that time. It is a fun way to raise funds for good causes whilst also being able to purchase high quality personalised cards made by the children. Due to the pandemic this was not able to happen this year so Head of Art, Mrs Sam Downer, offered the children at Senior House the chance to create Spring or Easter cards to take home at the end of the Lent Term with the suggestion of a donation to the Parents' Association's chosen charity, The Red Hen Project.
The Red Hen Project is a small local charity working with five primary schools in North Cambridge for the past 20 years. They support children and their families to overcome barriers to learning and provide a link between home and school. Their Red Hen family workers work one-to-one with children and families in their home, at school, and in the community. The charity also runs a range of outreach group activities: parenting courses, coffee morning drop-ins, workshops, family activities, trips and volunteer opportunities. The Project focuses on the individual needs of each child and their families and prioritises one-to-one support, complemented by peer support to help families to become independent. This may include addressing behavioural difficulties, reluctance to attend school, domestic violence or anything else that is making life difficult for children and parents.
The children's Spring art cards built upon the their previous art sessions using watercolours but with the inclusion of careful observational drawing too. Initially, the children had short sessions where they drew without looking at their paper to get a feel for studying the blossom and flowers in front of them, in order to understand their form and shape before progressing to longer sustained observations. The children also looked at how blossom and spring flowers have been represented in art with different artistic styles such as Vincent van Gogh's 'Almond Blossom', Damien Hurst's 'Renewal Blossom' and Japanese cherry blossom prints. A Form 5 child commented, "It was really relaxing being able to look at these fragile spring blossoms and recreate them in our own way, everyone had different interpretations of what they saw in front of them. It was also lovely to be able to work with watercolours once again and take home a piece of work you know you have spent time working on."
