Creative school pupils and artists from community groups across Midlothian gathered at Lowden, SQA’s new offices near Dalkeith, to see their work exhibited for the first time. The artwork, which decorates the meeting rooms and public spaces at Lowden was created as part of the Midlothian Art Challenge competition.

http://www.sqa.org.uk/sqa/48646.html

The competition encouraged pupils from local primary and secondary schools and members of community art groups to stretch their creative skills and produce a piece of work inspired by a famous Scot. The exhibition included caricatures, portraits, landscapes, abstracts and collages which represent Scottish icons including Robert Burns, designers Charles Rennie Mackintosh and Margaret MacDonald, patriot Sir William Wallace and Sir James Young Simpson, the physician who discovered the anaesthetic properties of chloroform.

Sat 28th April 2012

Curriculum for Excellence and the GI Festival – An NSEAD Conference for Teachers

Artist Teacher Programme, School of Education, University of the West of Scotland

Location: Tramway, 25 Albert Drive, Gasgow G41 2PE

10.30am – 6pm

In partnership with The National Society for Education in Art and Design (NSEAD) and University of the West of Scotland (UWS) Artist Teacher Programme, this event is designed for primary and secondary teachers of art, craft and design.  Presentations during the event will focus upon the experiences and outcomes of Curriculum for Excellence and will include presentations from Sheila Page HMIe\Education Scotland on Creativity in the art and design curriculum, the staff and young artists of Room 13 from two Fort William primary schools will look at contemporary art and how it helps raise contemporary issues in the classroom and others in the field of arts education in Scotland and beyond including Paul Dash, Goldsmiths, Graham Jeffery, Diarmuid McAuliffe and Katarzyna Kosmala from UWS. The GI artist Graham Fagen will also contribute to the event.

Venue Website
http://www.nsead.org/cpd/conferences.aspx
Admission Fee

Day Conference and Festival Tour £45 – booking via the NSEAD website

Young people from West Dunbartonshire’s Y Sort it group will be taking their anti knife-crime message to a national competition, after impressing local school pupils with their short film on the consequences of carrying a knife.
Knife crime is a significant issue in many parts of Scotland. The Scottish Youth Parliament and the Scottish Government’s Community Safety Unit have worked together to deliver We-CTV, a project where young people use production events to learn the facts about knife crime and produce short films to spread the message to their peers.  The films are then entered into a competition.

The Early Intervention Team from West Dunbartonshire Council, who are local leads for the project, invited a number of local youth groups to take part.  Young people aged 12 – 18 years who attend the Tullochan Trust, Y Sort it and the Pulse youth activities all entered the local heat of the competition. The judges were primary 7 pupils from St Michael’s Primary School, Castlehill, who chose the Y Sort-it entry as the local winner.

Ronnie Harper, Early Intervention Officer at West Dunbartonshire Council said: “All three local entries were of a very high standard, but there can only be one winner and I am delighted that the Y Sort it group will now have the chance to showcase their talents at a national level. Knife crime is a very serious issue and the We-CTV project is an excellent way to get the message out to young people across the country that carrying a knife is never acceptable. I am confident that they can win and do West Dunbartonshire proud.”

The Y Sort-it group will now go on to compete in a national competition.  All competitors will attend a national event this week (22 March) at Hampden Stadium, where they will meet experts in knife crime and advertising, and be given a brief to create a new short film by the end of April.

The Scottish Youth Parliament will then host all of the competing films on their websitewww.syp.org.uk/wectv for a national public vote. The votes will be used to produce a shortlist of three and the overall winner will be chosen by a judging panel.

The results will be announced at an awards night at Oran Mor, Glasgow on May 31^st. All ten regional winners will have their films premiered at the awards night.

Mark your diary for SLF 2012

SLF 2012 will be held on Wednesday 19 and Thursday 20 September 2012 in the SECC, Glasgow.

The theme for SLF 2012 is Creative Learning….Creative Thinking.

The Scottish Learning Festival 2012 will offer practitioners opportunities to learn more about the importance of creative skills for themselves and for their learners.  SLF 2012 will enable practitioners to develop skills and expertise to support creative learning and teaching across the curriculum through sharing information, highlighting innovation and showcasing best practice. SLF 2012 also provides continuing professional learning opportunities in line with recommendations set out in Teaching Scotland’s Future.

Call for Participation – submit your proposals by Friday 30 March

The Call for Participation is now open and full details of the theme along with an online submission form are available on the SLF website <http://newsletters-ltscotland.org.uk/LQE-QHIV-3GU5HR-A4YQR-1/c.aspx> .

Young knitters from St Joseph’s primary in Busby who, have taken part in a project called Knitting Mania, presented their hand knitted blankets to Tracy Gilmour of Alzheimer Scotland (Argyll and Clyde) at Hawthorne Court sheltered housing complex in Clarkston recently.
Alzheimer Scotland attempting to beat the current world record for the largest hand knitted (non crochet) blanket. The current record stands at 557.34 squared metres and is held by The Ladies of Hatfield Christian Church in South Africa.

http://www.eastrenfrewshire.gov.uk/index.aspx?articleid=423&id=3492

The Scottish Learning Festival 2012 will take place on Wednesday 19 and Thursday 20 September in the SECC, Glasgow. The theme for SLF 2012 is Creative Learning…Creative Thinking

http://www.ltscotland.org.uk/slf/

The Scottish Learning Festival 2012 will offer practitioners opportunities to learn more about the importance of creative skills for themselves and for their learners. SLF 2012 will enable practitioners to develop skills and expertise to support creative learning and teaching across the curriculum through sharing information, highlighting innovation and showcasing best practice. SLF 2012 also provides continuing professional learning opportunities in line with recommendations set out in Teaching Scotland’s Future.

The Call for Participation is now open and full details of the theme along with an online submission form are available on the SLF website .

A design and enterprise competition involving pupils from North Lanarkshire secondary schools, has been awarded the Inspire mark by the London 2012 Inspire Programme. The Design Enterprise Challenge gives third year Art and Design and Business Education pupils the opportunity to compete against each other using the facilities and expertise of the City of Glasgow College to produce and market a new product.

http://www.northlanarkshire.gov.uk/index.aspx?articleid=23618

Stunning exhibition offers public unique opportunity

http://www.aberdeencity.gov.uk/CouncilNews/ci_cns/pr_VanGoghtoVettriano_300112.asp

Aberdeen Art Gallery’s first major exhibition of 2012, From Van Gogh to Vettriano – Hidden Gems from Private Collections opens to the public on Saturday 4 February.
This unique exhibition will give visitors a wonderful opportunity to view international art from the 1870s to the present day which is being shown together in public for the first time. This outstanding selection of paintings and sculpture has been drawn from a number of private collections in the North-east. They illustrate the area’s long and rich tradition of supporting and collecting modern and contemporary art. There will be free artist-led master classes for 14-19 year olds during the spring holidays and older people will have the chance to learn new skills in special workshops inspired by the exhibition. For more information visit www.aagm.co.uk .

SLF 2012 will be held on Wednesday 19 and Thursday 20 September 2012 in the SECC, Glasgow. Look out for further information about the theme for SLF 2012, and the Call for Participation in the conference programme which will be available in due course.