This week in Integrated Arts we were joined by four Norwegian students that are studying Primary Education. They spoke to us about the school system in their country as well as the course they are studying at university. 
We learned from them the involvement of the arts in the primary schools of Norway. They told us that drama is rarely taught as a subject in itself and is normally integrated into the teaching of other subject areas like social studies or health and well-being. This is a similar concept to what was discussed in our drama workshop during week 3. They told us that if a teacher isn’t a creative person the (compulsory) art lessons may be boring and simple. Art lessons in Norwegian schools are often taught outside and use materials or inspirations they find around them. In art today, inspired by this and the work of artists like Andy Goldworthy, we went outside to create pieces of artwork with the autumn materials we found. Below shows a collection of Andy Goldworthy’s outdoor art creations.
My group decided to illustrate the issue of global warming and climate change by creating a clock face with a gradient of leaves to indicate time running out to make changes. 
Making art this way would be a lesson that can be changed to suit different levels in primary schools and is a lesson I will use during my career to teach about different art forms and how art can be made from the many materials that are available to us.
The students also told us of a dance that happens yearly that most primary schools get involved with. All pupils are taught the same dance and is performed and filmed simultaneously across the country at a set time and date. The students said this was a great project that happens in Norway as most children get heavily involved and love the experience. Below is a video of Norwegian primary school children performing a song and dance in school.
In music today, we used an app called Garage Band to create a track of our own using the sounds and instruments offered to us.
Garage Band is available for free on apple products like iPads. We also used an online page called Dirpy to download sounds from YouTube videos. A lot of schools now have iPads available to use and most have a full class set. Using this software with children is a great way to explore creativity and show them how music can be made. A video of the song I created can be found below.
The music and art workshops today, along with our lecture, were extremely interesting. As I had never used that software before and was unaware of the great teaching that it can bring, I . I enjoyed hearing from the Norwegian students about their education system at home as well as their opinion on it.
