East Ruston Community Infant School

The starting point for the culture of the countryside project at East Ruston was the school and its exrtaordinary environs. The school itself has a range of outdoor experiences, from meadowland to woodland areas. However, we also wanted to extend pupils' experiences to their wider natural environment, which includes a site of special scientific interest and the availability of interesting local clays, and to think about using the school grounds in novel and experimental ways.Children from East Ruston and local villages enjoyed an initial day of both indoor and outdoor activities based on stimulus from the Sainsbury Centre's Papua New Guinean collection.  On a follow-up day in early Autumn, the Sainsbury Centre team returned, this time with a wide range of mainly hunting artefacts from Northern Australia.  These stimulated an afternoon of working with natural dyes and pigments on large canvas triangles, which at the end of the day were sewn together to form a kind of shelter. During the day, the pupils also had the opportunity to visit the local woods, where they could study their own environment and insect life.