Out of This World is a space-themed art adventure that enhances children’s topic learning. As they create a range of exciting visual arts pieces, they explore the wonders of the universe.

Over six weeks, teachers lead drawing, painting, and collage workshops, as they guide children to create space-themed artwork, to share with family and friends in a showcase exhibition.

Out of This World develops children’s creative confidence, wellbeing, resilience, and learning engagement, whilst also improving visual arts and STEM knowledge.

So we do various different art activities, but we always try and link them to the curriculum and what the children are learning about in class. And this is to kind of help them get excited about all aspects of their learning. And also it’s an opportunity for teachers to see how art can be used as well in topic learning.

The programme’s definitely helped the children engage better with their learning, particularly maybe our lower ability children, who have had a chance to express themselves openly. Some of them can be quite shy and this is their time they’ve come out their shells and they’ve also experienced success through their paintings and they’ve made something they’re really, really proud of, which doesn’t necessarily happen every day for them if they struggle with some of the other work.

There’s lots I would take into my own practice from Delight, definitely in terms of my art, like pedagogy and how to teach art, for sure. I did like how well modeled everything was and they really liked that. So I think I’d definitely take on how much was modeled to them, rather than assuming that they would understand what to do a lot of the time. Because I didn’t realize that a lot of them didn’t even know what watercolors were. So being able to actually stop and explain and go back to the basics sometimes was necessary.

The sign supported English videos have just been so powerful. We are a very inclusive school, but the deaf pupils really appreciated seeing themselves on the screen and having that representation there and their faces just light up when they see the signers there. We have sign support in school, but to have that all organised was just brilliant for them.

So the children really enjoyed sharing their artwork with their parents and carers. They could, you could see their smiles on their faces. It definitely worked wonders for their self-confidence because not only did their parents and carers leave lovely comments in them, but also other adults that they, from around the school and their friends as well, writing lovely comments. So I think it’s had a bit of a self-esteem boost and lots of them have said they’re really proud of their work. They didn’t think that that’s something that they could achieve and they’re really proud that they have been able to achieve it.

I also think that it will start some more conversations between parents and their children about their art, about their aspirations and things like that. It was really good to see them conversing about art together.