Delight in Art: Rainforest Retreat

Art activism and celebrating the natural world are at the heart of the Rainforest Retreat programme. At school and linked with classroom learning, children develop their observational and self-expression skills to create leaves, bugs, and birds to transform the local library or school space into an enticing art installation to share with the community.

Rainforest Retreat empowers children to find their creative voice, increases their confidence, resilience, and wellbeing.

I thought that it was like an amazing experience to be part of it, especially with the learning in year four with covering the rainforest anyway in our topic lessons. And so it really brought it to life and allowed them to actually see what the rainforest could potentially look like, and the colours that you might see in there. Instead of just seeing pictures on a screen.

The teacher will have some CPD sessions in advance so that they feel confident to deliver these workshops. They also have the backup of having a little film, a how to film, that goes through everything step by step really clearly. So I think the teachers feel really well supported.

Doing art has made me more confident to show people my work and it’s made me better at doing lots of different techniques with art.

The teachers told me, so don’t move the scissors, move the paper instead.

As a newly qualified teacher myself, I’ve always been really keen to learn more, and I think the techniques have just been fantastic and I will definitely be using them in my art lessons and it’s given me the confidence to try new things and not actually just stick to the paint or stick to the drawing, and actually giving the children a variety and know very much like the children that it’s okay to take risks.

I think it was really, really lovely seeing the amount of parents that came into the classroom to look at the children’s work and that they were all engaging with the parents, showing them where their work was and what their booklets looked like, and actually having the parents say that they’re proud of them and giving them those lovely comments about their work and also other children’s work to see how it’s not just about their work, it’s about the collective class’s work as well, which was really nice to see. And you can see when they saw their parents come in, their faces lit up.

So he’s been really excited to talk to me about the Rainforest project. He’s been getting books out from the library. He’s been showing me all of his work and he’s been doing lots of drawings at home, so he’s really, really enjoyed it.

It makes me feel more creative and I, and I really like art and it really and it really makes my Monday morning feel better.