Far’n’Beyond WonderMakers

I was recently approached by a local digital printing business called Far’n’Beyond who wanted to sponsor art workshops in local schools. They are a national design and print agency working out of a business park near to Garforth.

I met with their project lead Laura, and we stared to plan the first session. Ive been working at Green Lane for a number of years so we planned to do our first one there. During the meetings, Far’n’Beyond designed the WonderMake brand to support their ideas of delivering practical creative workshops for kids. They say,

‘WonderMake brings together our passion for creativity with our commitment to supporting education and individual growth, giving children the freedom to experiment, make mistakes and discover what they're capable of creating.’

I have done class printing projects before but this one was very much about process and experimentation rather that output, but the kids still make some really interesting work. After the initial experimentations, we invited the children to share a memory through their favourite print marks.

Below are some of their pictures.

This one is a really sensitive print/drawing of the passing of a cat.

What was really good, was that this activity was sponsored by a local business. Schools are some of the most complex and extremely important institutions in our society. They need help with enrichment activities that actively nurture children and provide them with exciting and interesting and inspiring opportunities. Sponsorship is a great way to fund this because it means people like me, who already work in the local community, can organise art centred activities in schools and work with partners to facilitate important creative experiences for children.

The Enrichment framework is a non-statutory expectation from the DoE to schools, to offer activities to children to support personal growth. Developing partnerships with ‘philanthropic organisations, including businesses engaging in corporate social responsibility’ is one of the benchmarks.

This is taken from the Governments Enrichment Framework for schools in the UK.

Well-designed enrichment offer should be clear about how it supports broader development and connects to the curriculum or programmes of study. It should support children and young people’s engagement with education and opportunities for schools and colleges to build links with families and their wider community.

Opportunities like this one with Far’nBeyond’ is like giving a local school a lovely gift. Where effort, energy and support is given from outside to assist the important work going on, on the inside.