INTEGRATION BETWEEN SCHOOL AND CAMPUS

For two weeks of the duration of the Clare Island Campus, Marie Lionsquy and Claire Fear, both students of architecture in Paris and Edinburgh respectively, worked with the pupils of St. Patricks School on the island.

We developed a schedule of work in accordance with the Campus aims and those of Mrs Mary McCabe, the headteacher of the school (link to Mary McCabe's comments on the Campus), and Olof Gill, temporary teacher (link to Olof's comments on the Campus).

Our impressions after finishing teaching!

The Aims of the Intervention

One of the aims of the Campus is to involve the population of Clare Island in their own cultural heritage, through our work with the abbey. The introduction of architecture to children is a way of achieving this goal. The children of the school have not recently visited the abbey although it is only minutes from the school !

Children have got a great ability to be interested in almost everything with the condition that it is presented in an attractive way. Our challenge was to capture their interest in order to help them understand the importance of the abbey.

In drawing something the task requires you to look at the subject carefully. In doing this with the children the Abbey and its paintings will become highlighted within their own landscape - Clare Island.

Cultural Aims
-  To understand the importance of the abbey in a national context.
-  To convey the abbey better in the context of the island.
-  To look carefully at a building which is seen daily.
Technical Aims
-  To achieve new skills in the representation of Architecture.
-  To relate to the scale of the abbey and the wallpaintings.
-  To give them the opportunity to participate in different Campus projects, including the Web site.

The Schedule of Work

WEEK 1
Monday 4th (afternoon) at the abbey

-  A short introduction to Marie and Claire and the other members of the campus group and their projects.

-  The first task was to draw imaginary maps of the island (for all ages).

This was to see if the children recognised the Abbey as part of their Island.

-  This was followed by a visit to the Abbey and an introduction to some key architectural elements (all ages).

Each child was given a series of simple line drawings of different elements of the Abbey that they were then be prompted to recognise on the visit.  Other Campus participants then talked about the Abbey. Barbara, one of the conservators of the Abbey paintings described the conservation process and was helped by Maia and Zuzana who focused their attention on different aspects of the paintings. Rachel, a graduate of Architectural History and a student of Architectural Conservation in York, then spoke about the Architecture of the Abbey and the history of the Cistercians.

Visit of the abbey
Tuesday 5th (morning) at the abbey

-  Liz, a graduate of Heritage studies at Galway, came in to talk again about the Abbey in a wider context.

-  Survey of the exterior of the abbey.

The children were split into three mixed ability  groups with the task of measuring the four elevations of the building.  They used varying methods, some with a meter rule while others used comparative techniques.

-  Homework was to draw a plan of their own bedroom in order to introduce different methods of representing architecture
Wednesday 6th (all day) in the classroom

-  Drawing up the survey

The children drew the elevations from their survey notes and the archeological survey of 1993.

-  Small model

All of the children did a small model from the mornings work in accordance with their own level.
Thursday 7th (morning) in the classroom

Finishing the model

Group discussion

To echo the Islanders survey by another group of Campus participants we initiated a discussion with the children to find out their opinions about the future of the abbey from both an architectural and social view point.

Homework

Following the discussion, children had to write about  the future of the abbey and the castle

WEEK 2
Tuesday 12th (afternoon)

 -  Typing on the computer Thursdays homework.

Wednesday 13th (all day)

-  We had a talk by Zuzana (a graduate of Art History and student of Art Restoration in Bratislava) and Maďa (a graduate of physical science applied to archaeology in Bordeaux). They had previously made examples of a cross section through the abbey wall and paintings.

-  Re-visit to the Abbey to focus on the Wall-paintings.

-   In the afternoon the children re-visited the abbey to do their own paintings using pigments from local stone on the pre-cast tiles.

Friday 1(th (morning)

- 7-9pm PARTY and exhibition !!!!!!!

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