About this Event
About the workshop
Join artists and educators Emily Gopaul and Esther Adesigbin for a lively, practical teacher training session exploring Oak National Academy’s free Art and Design resources and the potential of art as a courageous classroom practice.
Art gives children ways to communicate experiences that do not always begin with words. Through materials, images, objects, movement and making, children can explore identity, belonging, memory, culture and the world around them. At its best, art education creates space for curiosity, uncertainty and different points of view, allowing children to recognise that their own experiences and ideas have value.
This jointly delivered session brings together Emily and Esther’s work as artists, educators and advocates for inclusive, anti-racist art education. Together they will consider how teachers can create classrooms in which children are encouraged to look closely, ask questions, take creative risks and use art to express something of themselves.
The session will use Oak National Academy’s free Art and Design curriculum resources as a practical starting point. Oak began in 2020, when teachers came together during the Covid-19 school closures to create high-quality lessons children could access from home. It has since developed into a major free educational resource, offering adaptable lessons, videos, slides, worksheets, quizzes and curriculum materials across all subjects and age groups.
Emily will introduce the wide range of educational support available through Oak National Academy and share ways teachers can use its free resources flexibly, as complete lessons, starting points, planning tools or material to adapt and make their own. As Art and Design Lead at Oak National Academy, Emily worked in partnership with NSEAD on the development of a fully sequenced and editable KS1–KS4 Art and Design curriculum.
We will experiment with selected activities from two units, making, questioning and testing ideas together. Looking closely at a Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 3 Oak art unit, considering how the lessons how the lessons might be adapted for different classrooms and learners.
Pleae join us in asking:
How can teachers take an existing resource and reshape it for the children sitting in front of them? During the session, we will explore these questions through conversation, practical examples and making.
The aim is to renew confidence in the classroom as a creative space for alll.
No specialist art knowledge is needed - please book if you are involved in any form of art education in the classroom and beyond. We look forward to meeting you.
About Emily Gopaul
Emily Gopaul is a London-born art educator, artist, author and consultant of Indo-Guyanese heritage, with nearly two decades of experience teaching and leading art across primary and secondary education.
Her work centres on meaningful, inclusive and courageous art education, supporting teachers and cultural organisations to create spaces in which a wider range of artists, histories and experiences can be encountered.
Emily’s consultancy work has included collaborations with Teach First, the Henry Moore Foundation, Tate, BBC Bitesize, BBC Teach, the Crafts Council, Freelands Foundation, NSEAD and the Thackray Museum, alongside schools, universities and teacher-training providers.
She is a passionate advocate for anti-racist, inclusive and courageous art education. She works closely with NSEAD on its anti-racist initiatives and is a founding member of UBAE, a self-organised network for art educators and art professionals.
About Esther Adesigbin
Esther Adesigbin is an artist, educator and teacher trainer whose work brings together making, identity, representation and anti-racist creative practice.
Her approach has grown from more than eleven years working within a London primary school, alongside extensive work with schools, galleries, cultural organisations and educators. She has contributed to projects and training with organisations including Oak National Academy, the Greater London Authority and October Gallery, and is also a member of UBAE.
As an artist, Esther works across materials including glass, paper and mixed media. Her long-term project ‘365’ uses making as a way to investigate identity, racialisation, language and lived experience, and this artistic enquiry has strongly informed her approach to teaching and teacher training.
Her education practice asks how art can create space for children and adults to encounter different perspectives, question inherited narratives and communicate experiences that may be complex, personal or difficult to express through words alone.
For Oak National Academy, Esther developed primary Art and Design resources from Year 1 to Year 6, bringing together classroom experience, contemporary artists, inclusive practice and a belief in making as a form of thinking.
Event venue & nearby stays
October Gallery, 24 Old Gloucester Street, London, United Kingdom
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