Project Introduction
Ruth Finn working with Burnt Mill School

Theatre designer Ruth Finn worked initially with the art department staff
at Burnt Mill School, which is a designated specialist arts college. One major
object of their plan was to create a collaboration between the art and maths
Departments.

Ruth began by consulting maths and art staff and pupils, and then moved on to organise, with art teacher Tiff Brown, some INSET for the maths and art
departments. They also invited the Essex County Council Maths Advisor, Peter
Revitt, to run a workshop on paper folding with both art and maths staff.

The maths staff worked on developing some of their new ideas for the classroom, dividing into groups, each with an artist, and looking at ultiplication, algebra and fractions. A maths and art lesson was developed to
use as one of the school’s performance management targets.

16 members of staff now take part in half termly cluster meetings, sharing ideas and using the expertise of both maths and art staff to develop and enrich the teaching and learning experience.

“….I can’t believe I am really getting excited about maths….” (art teacher who gained a ‘U’ Grade at O Level)

“Congratulations to all involved, and in particular Miss Brown and Mr Hargreaves for an outstanding addition to the innovative and exciting teaching approaches now becoming commonplace at Burnt Mill.” From Burnt Mill News

You can get the full story on how Burnt Mill developed the relationship between its maths and art staff on a PowerPoint presentation prepared by Ruth Finn and Tiff Brown.

Click here to view the PowerPoint presentation about the project at Burnt Mill School.

In addition, Ruth and Tiff carried out a number of projects large and small with the school. For example, they used the work of Frank Gibberd from the Harlow Museum to carry out a project on ‘a sense of place’.
Click on the links below to find out more.

Project links

Project 1: More on staff collaboration
Project 2: Maths and art homework
Project 3: A sense of place
Project 4: Some small projects: Algebra and design/Ratio colour-mixing

Evaluation: Burnt Mill took part in the in-depth independent evaluation carried out by Martin Heaney.