Schools Programme

Since 2012, Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop has partnered with Trinity and Victoria Primary Schools to deliver a Schools Programme, inspiring curiosity and practical making skills.

Until 2020, every Primary 5 pupil from both schools visited our shared learning studio weekly for a full school year, working alongside invited artists. These practical workshops encouraged imagination, collaboration, play, and experimentation, with support from teachers, parents, and volunteers.

In Autumn 2021, we adapted the programme to take place in our outdoor learning studio. Currently, every P5 pupil from Trinity and Victoria Primary visits six times throughout the school year, engaging in artist-led workshops focused on play, exploration, and creative use of materials and tools. Our Schools Programme continues to grow, providing young learners with hands-on artistic experiences that nurture creativity and curiosity.

Schools Programme 2024-2025

Over the Autumn 2024 and Spring 2025 terms, we worked with Primary 5 pupils from Trinity Primary School and Victoria Primary School as part of our ongoing Schools Programme.

Across four weeks, each class took part in one-hour visits to Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop where they explored materials through bricolage — working with toys, offcuts of wood, cardboard, and clay. The pupils delved deeper into ceramic techniques, learning how to build, join, and decorate clay using underglazes before preparing their pieces for firing.

Each child designed a unique character based on their personal interests. Working in pairs, they imagined and built miniature “lands” for their characters, thinking about who or what else might live there, what daily life might look like, and the environment that would support it.

All of the clay works were glazed, fired, and presented in two exhibitions: Little Lands in January 2025 and Micro Soft Worlds in April 2025.

When the P5s returned for their weekly visits in the Summer Term, they began a new project focused on mythical creatures. These workshops were supported by this year’s Graduate Residents — Esther Castle, Niamh Finnigan, Carys Reynolds, and Sophie Hall, with additional support from Luke Kelman, who also helped deliver the sessions.

During the first session, each pupil designed and built an imaginative body part — a claw, wing, eye, tail, or horn — using wood and paint. In the second session, they collaborated in small groups to bring these parts together into full mythical creatures, complete with names, personalities, and rich backstories.

From rainbow-breathing dragons to underwater shapeshifters, each sculpture became part of a vibrant cast of characters!

This work will culminate in our annual Schools Celebration Event, which the P5s have named Mythical Thursday, find out more here.

Schools Programme 2023-2024

In the Autumn and Spring term we worked with three Primary 5s classes from Trinity Primary and two classes from Victoria Primary. Over 4 weeks each class came for one hour visits and we made a banquet from recycled materials and started to experiment with ceramics. They made self portraits and one sentence stories based on observations from everyday life, jokes and their imaginations from clay.

All the clay pieces were glazed, fired and exhibited in ‘Guess Who’ in December 2023 and ‘Sculptures of Us’ in April 2024 see here for more information.

In the summer Term all the Primary 5s returned to ESW to work with artists on projects leading to a Celebration Event in ESW’s Courtyard. They worked with artists; Sequoia Barnes to adapt and make their own soft toys, Alaya Ang to make amulets and structures, Morven Mulgrew to create hats and bags and with Ben Owen a sonic totem pole.

All the work made by the pupils was shared at The Sculpture Event Featuring Fashin Pashin and The Circus of Sound with all the P5s, teachers, PSA’s and families.

Schools Programme 2022-2023

In October 2022 we welcomed the first of our Trinity and Victoria Primary P5 classes. Each group of P5’s has taken part in  ceramics workshops, wood working and sessions lead by visiting artists: Jack Cheetham, Juliana Capes, Alliyah Enyo, Madeline Wood & Hannah Draper, Isobel Leonard, Sequoia Barnes, Sabrina Henry,  Rumpus Room artists Nadia Rossi and Rachel Walker. These workshops involved; puppet making, installation art, tape loop recording, making wearable art from recycled materials that give them super powers, light displays, making collaborative creatures that move together, net making with materials from the sea & creating garden cities of tomorrow. 

After the Easter break each of the Primary 5 classes returned to work with an artist on a project over two weeks. 

P5E made Shadow Puppets with Niamh Hughes using card, an overhead projector and acetates, you can see the final works here.  

P5M worked with Frieda Ford to make masks and creatures inspired by the folk custom of hoodening.

P5J designed and played their own crazy golf courses with Bernie Reid.

Victoria P5A made architecture from bamboo skewers, tooth picks and tape with Yumiko Ono

P5B made wearable sculptures with Oana Stancui and experimented with them using a green screen.

On the 22 June we hosted P5-a-rama! a celebration event where we invited all the children we have worked with this year for a celebration event with all their families and teachers to see the results of all their work with snacks, a disco, sculpture making, green screen and game playing. 

See below for a video of the event captured by artist and studio holder Juliana Capes.

Schools Programme 2021-2022

All of the classes started by experimenting with ceramics and woodwork. They all made a small object from clay that would later be glazed and fired in the kiln. We bought the wood workshop outside and spent the sessions getting to grips with woodwork tools, using hammers, saws, hand drills and vices to assemble sculptures using off-cuts of wood.

The first visiting artist of the year was Kate Temple, who worked with pupils from Trinity Primary. We painted with inks found in nature and used foraged plants, berries, coins and other found material to dye our own tote bags through the process of natural bundle dying.

Katy Wilson brought some high fashion inspiration with headdress making using recycled materials, and larger objects such as an old cable phone and a croc shoe. The session finished up with a walk down the red carpet and a photo shoot in the shipping container.

Max Wilson (AKA Play Radical) invited us to test out some communication devices made by children from an alien planet which was designed by Max as part of ESW’s ‘Artist’s Toolkit’ project. Working in groups, the class played around with these devices, attempting to work out how you might use them to communicate with each other. The group then used ropes, switches, paint pens, tape and other materials to create new methods of communicating, showing each other how to use them.

Naomi Garriock hosted a day of collaborating, swapping, sharing and collective picture-making. We also experienced her Mind’s Eye Booth, where you can touch but not see or see but not touch. This booth was designed by Naomi as part of as part of ESW’s ‘Artist’s Toolkit’ project. The class had to pass on instructions to each other of what to do when you enter the booth, while outside the rest of the group made paintings with plasticine on tiles, connecting them together at the end to make one collaborative work.

Adam Benmakhlouf worked P5s from Victoria Primary school and led a workshop in ‘Tableaux Vivants,’ where the class responded to visual and written prompts to create ‘living pictures’, making silent, static scenes that tell a story through the use of gestures and props. Alaya Ang then lead the following session, making theatre style back-drops and experimenting with costume design. The class then performed impromptu plays at the end of the hour-long workshop.

Leading up to the end of term, each class returned to work with another artist for a final two sessions to make something that would be exhibited in the courtyard at our end of year celebration event.

Lorenzo Rangoni Robertson lead one workshop in mask making followed by collaborative totem pole building, all using recycled materials.

Keith Farquhar introduced collaging using old clothes to make collaborative artworks on recycled boards.

Victoria Smith shared some painting techniques that we used to make a giant collaborative sky painting. During the second session we made a variety of signs, thinking about what message we would like to give out to everyone in the courtyard.

Maria Wrang-Rasmussen guided the class to think about games and world making and together the class made a giant felt board game.  They made players from recycled materials, added details with 3D pens, and made spinners and dice to play the game.

Our last P5 workshops of the school year were spent making costumes (and lots of noise!) with artist Rae-Yen Song. The group thought about how they could adapt their outfits to make sound while considering new ways to move in them. We finished up the last session with some disco dancing on the courtyard dance floor, to songs chosen by the class.

At the end of the term we were delighted to invite all 140 Primary 5s back to the ESW courtyard for a final celebration of all the incredible things they had done this year. We asked the P5s what they wanted; crisps, Oreos, gummy bears, music, and a making station which we set up inside to provide a space for creative breaks from all the dancing! The event showcased the work made by each group in the final artist-led workshops and the P5s invited their families, teachers and PSAs to join them in the courtyard. We have absolutely loved working, playing and making with every group and we are so amazed by the creativity and imagination each one of them bring.

Read a new text, ‘Facilitating Magic’ by Learning Assistant, Megan Rudden reflecting on her time as Learning Assistant.

Find out more about previous years of our schools programme please visit our blog here.

Up until the pandemic the schools programme presented one public exhibition each year, see below for previous exhibitions:

WIP – Digital Magazine (2020)

Emotes  (June 2019)

After Party (June 2018)

Stop Making Sense (June 2017)

Craftwork (June 2016)

Stranger in a Strange Land (December 2015)

Rock, Paper, Scissors, Lights, Camera, Action! (June 2015)

Garden of Earthly Delights (December 2014)

Junior Masters of Fine Art (June 2014)

Art School Degree Show (June 2014)

Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop Schools Programme has been kindly supported by Creative Scotland, The Schiehallion Group, Foyle Foundation, The Robertson Trust, Trusthouse Charitable Foundation, The Golsoncott Foundation, Edinburgh College of Art, Thistledown Trust, Trinity & Victoria Primary Schools and The Binks Trust.