totem poles being made by senior students at Bulleen Heights School

Croxton Special School ceramic project

left: ceramic pets, a horse, Dragon, ladybird and owl, made by the students. The Croxton Special School Garden Project The Croxton Special School received a grant from the CASS Foundation to enable their two senior classes to attend Northcote Pottery to have ceramic lessons. After the success of this project, Croxton School applied for a second grant to enable these classes to continue ceramics back at their school with the assistance of the same artist/teacher, Debbie Qadri. Debbie worked with the students and their art teacher Emma, in their scheduled art classes,to improve their skills and to make a ceramic project for their school. The students made things to incorporate into the school's garden. The garden has an important place in the school and all of the students in the school spend time caring for it and appreciating it. As part of the garden project, the students made totem pole pieces, bird houses, animals for mosaic panels and shells hangings. At the end of the project, on a special day in December all of the ceramic pieces were installed in the garden. The students spent time hanging up their birdhouses, threading shells together and arranging them on the chookhouse, looking at the totem poles and mosaic panels which featured their work. The senior students provided tours of the garden to other classes, and to our special visitors from the CASS Foundation.

left: a totem pole with each section made by different students

left: students from the senior classes took other classes on a tour to show them the ceramic things that they had made.

left: a mosaic of two people and their pets. The people were made collaboratively by small groups of students.

Croxton Special School Garden Project

birdhouse with shells. The Croxton Special School Garden Project The Croxton Special School received a grant from the CASS Foundation to enable their two senior classes to attend Northcote Pottery to have ceramic lessons. After the success of this project, Croxton School applied for a second grant to enable these classes to continue ceramics back at their school with the assistance of the same artist/teacher, Debbie Qadri. Debbie worked with the students and their art teacher, Emma in their scheduled art classes,to improve their skills and to make a ceramic project for their school. The students made things to incorporate into the school's garden. The garden has an important place in the school and all of the students in the school spend time caring for it and appreciating it. As part of the garden project, the students made totem pole pieces, bird houses, animals for mosaic panels and shells hangings. At the end of the project, on a special day in December all of the ceramic pieces were installed in the garden. The students spent time hanging up their birdhouses, threading shells together and arranging them on the chookhouse, looking at the totem poles and mosaic panels which featured their work. The senior students provided tours of the garden to other classes, and to our special visitors from the CASS Foundation.

red birdhouse by Melissa earthenware with red underglaze.

Black hen, enjoying the attention

a cat totem pole

view of the decorated chook house

totem poles at St Bernards Primary School

here are some links to other artists who have made totem poles.
Below: Julia Sanderl's website, where she has made some very interesting totem pole pieces with school children, using coils.
http://juliasanderl.com/2008/01/01/ceramic-sculpture/
below: the picture of the final poles. They are made from vitrified stoneware clay with oxides. She says she filled a tyre with cement as the base and fixed them onto a basketball pole.
http://juliasanderl.com/2008/02/29/heron-totem/

Here are the finished totem poles at St Bernard's Primary School in Coburg.

The children of the school made the parts in groups of two or three.
The theme was the school's birthday and the children decorated their sections to celebrate school activities such as maths, music, lote, sports.

The assembly of the poles was done by Debbie assisted by students.

The ceramic pieces are made with earthenware clay and are decorated with underglazes, and glazed with an earthenware gloss glaze.