Thadian Pillai working with Tany’s Dell School

The school/artist team at Tany’s Dell felt very lucky to be working in a school that has extensive grounds. Over the years the school has made many improvements to the grounds, both cosmetically and functionally. However, these improvements have always been seen as separate events rather than creating a long term plan for the whole site. Recent losses of trees due to age and bad weather have also left the school with a lack of shade, creating very hot classrooms in summer.

The school recognised that the children, while acquiring many of the skills needed to become confident mathematicians, were less confident at applying these skills to real life and to problem-solving situations. Having been partnered with a landscape artist in the Creativity for Life project, teachers saw this as an ideal opportunity for the children to learn and apply mathematical skills in a real life situation that will have a direct impact upon them and their surroundings. Through a number of smaller, closely linked projects, the team has been able to involve all the children within the school and nursery in developing a final masterplan for improvements to the school grounds.

Each of the project pages contains an introduction to the project and a PowerPoint presentation with information and images about the project.

The school has created a PowerPoint presentation giving an overview of all the projects.
Click here to view this introductory presentation.

Project links

Project 1: Green Harlow
Project 2: Landscape Survey
Project 3: Man-Made and Natural Materials Survey
Project 4: Emotional Responses to Space
Project 5: Surveying the School Community
Project 6: Landscapes Made Famous By Artists Made Famous By Landscapes
Project 7: Christmas Cards and Stars
Project 8: Tetrahedron as Space and Number
Project 9: A Landscape of People
Project 10: Tree Research
Project 11: Paper Landscapes

Evaluation: Tany’s Dell took part in the in-depth independent evaluation carried out by Martin Heaney.