Love of Learning Arts and Culture Enrichment in your School
Joyful learning is often encouraged in the younger years but can be replaced by pressures around assessment and outcomes as pupils move through school. Providing space within and around the curriculum to reconnect with playfulness can support wellbeing and motivation, helping pupils feel more connected to their learning.
Why choose activities from the Love of Learning Pathway?
The ideas on this page are designed to help you think about how you can create an exciting enrichment offer in your school.
The ideas in this pathway help schools meet the DfE Enrichment Benchmark:
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A well-communicated enrichment offer that celebrates participation and achievement
How might these activities be embedded into your enrichment offer?
In particular, the activities and approaches outlined on this journey are suited to:
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Art clubs during lunch or after school
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Smaller group activities within the curriculum
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Art weeks
Tips!
Resist the temptation to move too fast, and make sure pupils have plenty of space and know they are not being measured on the outcomes.
Give pupils the opportunity to reflect on their approaches and discoveries by looking at the outcomes together and discussing what they noticed, learned and enjoyed during the process.
Provide opportunities that spark joy in learning
At its core, art gives pupils the freedom to make choices, explore ideas and follow their own paths of discovery. When pupils see that learning is something they can shape through their own curiosity and experiences, a love of learning can emerge.
This love changes learning from something we have to do into something we want to explore. The joy it brings can motivate pupils to stay with challenging tasks, remain open to playful experimentation and new ideas, and feel safe enough to take creative risks.
Develop pupils’ love for learning through creativity
These activities have been chosen for their playful approach, putting love and joy at the heart of pupils’ experiences. Each encourages intuitive making, helping pupils find pleasure and freedom in the creative process.
Pupils create Insect Sculptures from wire, textiles and beads, working intuitively to wrap and bundle materials and play with form. Explore scale and collaboration by making larger insects and bringing them together in a whole-school installation.
Pupils are challenged to create colourful, experimental still life paintings Working on Black Paper. Using paint, pattern, sgraffito and collage, they explore colour and mark-making in playful ways to create individual, joyful paintings that reveal the process of layering.
Transform the classroom into a fashion school where pupils design unique clothing through playful, creative approaches. Explore Alternative Fashion through a range of disciplines and materials, working individually and collaboratively. Choose from a range of fashion activities to suit your setting.
Treehouses are places we associate with childhood: safe spaces filled with imagination, play and adventure. Pupils Make a Treehouse intuitively, without designing first, exploring architectural ideas, shape and form, and the transformation of materials.
Pupils draw large-scale portraits of each other, using marks instead of words to celebrate their classmates’ traits, qualities and contributions.
Pupils make inventive Egg Box Gargoyles, playing and experimenting with materials while developing 3D problem-solving skills and exploring how facial expressions communicate character.
Pupils work together to create to-scale Astronaut Paper Body Casts experimenting with the potential of paper and its capacity to hold a shape.
Resources
Making Insect Sculptures
Working on Black Paper
Alternative Fashion
Making a treehouse
Drawing Portraits: Celebrating Class Success!
egg box gargoyles
Astronaut Paper Body Casts
