Past Projects

Children's Views on the William Morris Gallery

The aim of the project was to work with a small
group of children and for them to produce a
short video in which they talk about items in the
Gallery which they particularly like. This would
then be available for viewing on the Gallery
website. The plan was to work with six Year 6
children from Henry Maynard Junior School,
but fairly late in the planning this had to be
changed to Year 5.

The project took place on 24 July 2008. After an
introduction to the Gallery by Peter Ashan the
children went round the Gallery to each select
an item that they wished to talk about and make
notes on it. They then each presented their
piece to camera with the other children taking
turns to operate the camera and monitor the
sound. They also videoed shots of the items.

After lunch the video was edited with each child editing their particular section with suggestions from the others. This included selecting which take of their presentation to use and how to integrate the shots of the items. Finally they jointly selected the typeface and colour for the title and credits. By the end of the afternoon we had the six sections edited, making a total of 2 minutes and 45 seconds.

Each child has received a copy of the DVD and we are now working towards displaying the video on the Gallery website.

The children developed and used a range of skills including:
· Researching information from the Gallery display
· Writing a suitable piece of text
· Presenting this clearly to camera
· Operating the camera
· Working together as a group
· Selecting and editing the video.

As one child wrote in his evaluation, he had learnt “how to spik nice and clear and they all understanded”. Another commented “Overall, it was wicked!”.

Hugh Meteyard