Weekly Message 72 – 5 June 2020

5th June 2020

Weekly Message – Issue 72

This week, staff and pupils have been busy familiarising themselves with our revamped home learning provision, adapted and developed in acknowledgement that we are unlikely to see many of our pupils this term.

Initial feedback is positive, and we have welcomed input from both pupils and parents/carers accessing the provision this week, to continue our development and enable things to run as smoothly as possible for everyone.

The home learning provision for this term includes the use of our new ‘Cams Hill Online Classroom (CHOC)’ which is already up and running for Year 10 pupils. Teachers and pupils with their parents’/carers’ support, are learning to work together in ways that are unfamiliar but it is impressive when you see what is being achieved in a short space of time.

Year 10 Re-Connection Calls

There have been 230 ‘Zoom’ calls made this week to pupils by the Year 10 tutor team!

The online booking system ran remarkably smoothly and tutors were absolutely thrilled to see so many happy faces out there. We have missed you! The calls allowed tutors to re-connect with pupils and check in on welfare and progress with home learning.

As a result, tutors have been able to make suggestions on remote study and time management and signpost further support, which we hope will be of benefit to our pupils.

Assemblies

The Heads of Year conclude each week with a short assembly to update, share information and to keep-in-touch with pupils in their year groups.

Assemblies for the week will be posted on our new Vimeo Assemblies channel by the end of every Friday: https://vimeo.com/channels/1579277

Key Worker School (KWS)

It’s been a lovely start to the second half of the summer term with some birthday celebrations which were celebrated in style… thanks to lovely Mr Watkins and Mrs Woodrow in the canteen!

Happy birthday boys!

We’ve also had a buzz of excitement with some unexpected visitors … in the shape of 8,000 honeybees. Luckily for us, Tony from Ashworth Honey came to take them safely away … armed with a special box, he gave them a little sweep and they gladly climbed in! Apparently, all looked healthy; it had maybe got a little too crowded in the hive.

Thank you for saving us Tony!

Finally, we’ve been getting creative.

Despite being 11 weeks in, we still miss the rest of our community.

Cams Creative – follow us on Twitter @cams_creative

At the end of each week the Art Department celebrates the awesome work of pupils in the ‘Camscreative Gallery’ – Gallery Number 4 was published on Twitter on Thursday – please do take a look.

Thank you to the pupils that have sent in work and we look forward to seeing more and being able to share the creativity!

Here is work created by Amy L in Year 9 along with an insight into her inspiration and the process she follows that results in these amazing pieces of Art.

My Inspiration

I’ve always been creative, but I think what really made art a passion of mine was being inspired by other artists. I started drawing more seriously about three years ago – I was really into animated TV shows and tried replicating the characters myself. It was a really enjoyable hobby for me, and I started teaching myself from other artists’ work, especially drawing tutorials that people had made. I think you can really learn a lot from others!

Eventually, experimenting and lots of practice helped me build a style of my own.

Social media was also a huge influence for me. There is a large and diverse community of artists online, and they are so inspiring. I also wanted to share my art and support other people, so I started my Instagram account. In less than a year, I’ve gained over 1000 followers, which is incredible! It has given me so many new ideas, helped me shape my art style even more, and allowed me to discover new artists.

Ultimately, I draw for enjoyment. I love to draw anything that I like or am interested in – from cute outfits to characters from books and TV. It feels so great to support and help others, too. I’ve been inspired by so many artists, and now I hope I can inspire others in the same way.

My Favourite Tools

-Mechanical pencil for sketching

-Square sketchbook

-Alcohol-based markers

-Huion screen tablet and pen

-Krita (drawing program)

My Process

I start by making a rough sketch of the piece I want to draw, then scan this and open it in my drawing program.
On a new layer, I then draw over the sketch, making it neater and adding detail.
Next, I’ll work out my colour pallette and colour in the linework. I like to use soft colours and add some gradients to make them look more interesting.
To shade the character, I take a colour (usually pink) and set it to a different mode so that it darkens the colours beneath it. I also use an off-white to add highlights.
The final steps are adding a simple background and some texture – and signing it!