Art and Creative Writing Competition 2012

PREP & PRIMARY SCHOOLS FESTIVAL OF ART 2012: PAINTING, DRAWING & CREATIVE WRITING COMPETITION

The competition has grown immeasurably in the last few years, and last year's Africa-themed competition proved by far the most rewarding. In terms of the standard of work submitted, the number and diversity of schools taking part and the sheer joy with which the pupils embraced the theme, we could not have been more delighted.

As a consequence of the competition's growth, so the prestige of entering has increased.

All pupils in Years 3 to 8 are encouraged to take part and we hope this will provide an excellent opportunity to broaden the cross-curricular options for staff and pupils of prep and primary schools, making for a fun project and allowing room for a wide range of talents to come to light.

THEMES AND CATEGORIES

This year we have chosen the broad theme of THE OCEAN for pupils to work with as we feel this will provide plenty of opportunity for cross-curricular exploration. There is a wide choice of categories within this theme that pupils should use as the basis of their study:

A Pirate's Life For Me!
A Titanic Battle
Adrift
Breaching The Surface: The Dance of The Whale/Dolphin
Coral Wonderland
Discovering Atlantis
My Life In A Shell
The Beach Hut
The Creature I Would Least Like to Swim With
The Creature I Would Most Like to Swim With
The Exotic Fish of the Pacific Ocean
The Fleet
The Lighthouse
The Mermaid's Song
The Message in the Bottle
The Rising Seas: A Global Warning
The Sardine Run
The Seven Seas: The Strange, The Scary, The Beautiful
The Ship's Cat
The Shipwreck
The Storm
The Unfriendly Octopus
Tsunami Terror

We feel that this theme will provide artistic and literary children with plenty of opportunity for personal expression and we hope that they will respond with great enthusiasm, producing imagery or writing that is vibrant in every way.

AWARDS CEREMONY

A large selection of all submissions (to include art and creative writing) from each school will be displayed in the Prep and Primary Schools Arts Exhibition held at Haileybury on the same day as the official Awards Ceremony which is set to take place on a Saturday morning in June 2012 (final date yet to be confirmed).

At the Awards Ceremony, the winners and runners-up of each age category will be announced and superb prizes awarded to each for both art and writing. The best entry and runner-up from each school will receive a Certificate of Merit and a special award, and numerous prizes will be presented to the Overall Winner in both competitions.

RULES AND GUIDELINES: ART

We can only accept 2D work (i.e. paintings, drawings or collages) - this is due to the difficulty of our safely storing 3D work.
Each submission MUST be clearly identified on the back with the pupil's name, school, year category, chosen title, the name of the Head of Art and contact telephone number and email address, with the labels provided by Haileybury (download here).
For display purposes, schools may also wish to label the name of the artist and school on the front of the artwork.
To avoid any misspellings, schools should remember to clearly PRINT the name of the pupil/s involved.
Though there are no strict limits to the number of art entries, schools should be aware that we will only be able to allocate each school a display area of 8ft x 8ft, which should be taken into account when determining sizes and quantity of submissions made.
Submissions should be sent in using a polybag or art bag (A1, A2 or A3).
A completed pro forma (download here) should also be sent in with submissions, granting permission for Haileybury to feature photographs of pupils' artwork in appropriate articles and related websites.

RULES AND GUIDELINES: CREATIVE WRITING

We ask that the pupils write according to the following instructions:

Years 3 and 4, up to 300 words
Years 5 and 6, up to 400 words
Years 7 and 8, up to 500 words
The word count must be precisely recorded at the end of the composition.
Pupils may use any of the above titles as stimuli and the chosen title must be clearly written at the top of each submission and on the attached label.
Submissions must be written as prose or poetry.
Work must be HANDWRITTEN and may be illustrated round the edges although this is NOT a requirement, but may fulfil the pupils' creative needs!
Presentation will be taken into consideration when judging the essays and poetry along with the actual content.
Pupils should write on ONE SIDE of the paper only, NOT on the reverse side.
Completed work should be MOUNTED or LAMINATED to aid display and to avoid damage to paper; multiple sheets should be clipped together with NO NAMES visible on the essay itself.
To avoid any misspellings, schools should remember to clearly PRINT the name of the pupil/s involved.
A completed pro forma (download here) should also be sent in with submissions, granting permission for Haileybury to feature pupils' work in appropriate articles and related websites.

On the labels provided by Haileybury (download here), schools will be required to list the name of the Head of English and contact telephone number and email address, in case we should have any queries concerning the work.

We ask schools to kindly initially judge creative writing entries themselves, submitting no more than the top 10 essays/poems in each age group from the school. The work of chosen pupils will then be judged as shortlisted entries from all the schools that make submissions to the competition.

Schools should let us know, when submitting pupils' entries, how many pupils entered the competition within the school.

DEADLINE

The deadline for submission of all entries to Haileybury is 12 March 2012.

SENDING ENTRIES

All artwork needs to be sent to the Head of Art, and all creative writing pieces need to be sent to Mrs Karen Smith who will collate the work for the Head of English. The address is as follows:

Haileybury
Hertford
SG13 7NU

We look after every single item with great care and aim to return them undamaged so it is much appreciated if they reach us with plenty of packaging. It is vital that each submission has full return contact details as well as the artist/author details.

WHAT NOW?

Pupils should have been encouraged to commence study last September, in time for completion by the deadline of 12 March 2012. Any queries relating to this competition should be directed to Tana Macpherson-Smith or Karen Smith.