Students from Kidsgrove’s Clough Hall Technology School are getting ready to use their imagination and art skills to lead on a community project to improve the frontage of Kidsgrove rail station.
The students, all from Year 7, plan to create a number of large canvases, to be displayed on the front of the station, featuring the history of the local area, trains, passengers and destinations that can be reached using rail services from Kidsgrove station.
The canvases are being developed as part of a scheme in the spring 2010 curriculum called "Unity and Harmony". Unity and Harmony focuses on citizenship and involves the students thinking about working with others.
To illustrate the community focus of the project, Year 7 will work on individual canvases, each shaped like pieces of a jigsaw, which when displayed will interlock, creating two large murals to frame the entrance to the station.
Year 7 plan to achieve further impact in the community by inviting students from other local schools to paint their own jigsaw piece as part of the display.
Laura Dale, a teacher at Clough Hall Technology School, said: ”The students are all incredibly enthusiastic about starting this project for Kidsgrove rail station. It will form part of our cross-curricular project, which runs in year 7, to create as many opportunities as possible for the students’ work to have real outcomes. When completed, the art work will demonstrate the idea of the community coming together to benefit the local area.”
Faye Lambert, Project Officer for the North Staffordshire Community Rail Partnership said: “Clough Hall School has come up with a great idea to do something meaningful and beneficial for their community and we’re delighted that they have chosen Kidsgrove station as a focus for their project. I look forward to working with them towards completion of the murals in the spring term.”
Claire Ansley, Route Manager for East Midlands Trains, said: “We are delighted to be involved in this project and very much look forward to seeing the finished canvases, which will brighten up the station and provide an informative focal point for passengers.”
This is the second time that Kidsgrove station has benefited from the artistic skills of local schoolchildren; in 2007 a group from Kidsgrove’s Maryhill High School unveiled a range of colourful murals to decorate the walls of the station ticket office and waiting room.