Rubbish or Art

Students from the Isle of Wight’s Clatterford Tuition Centre found a unique way to re-use the rubbish they collected during their Big Tidy Up – creating ‘art junk’ sculptures!

Teachers from the Centre held the tidy up on Brighstone Beach in the south of the island in January 2009, as a way to enable pupils to better understand where rubbish comes from.

Rope, netting, plastic bottles and fabric washed up on the beach were used to make structures, sculptures and craft items which are now on display in the Centre and may be incorporated into a community exhibition in the future. Rubbish which couldn’t be recycled was taken to the local tip.

The Big Tidy Up was initially planned as part of the Centre’s ongoing commitment to the Eco-Schools programme, before being incorporated into its cross-curricular community project ‘Celebrating Our Local Environment’.

Following the clean-up, youngsters spent time looking at rock structures in the surrounding cliffs, searched for fossils within rock formations and created sand casts using plaster.
Clatterford Tuition Centre is a Pupil Referral Unit which caters for young people between the ages of 11 and 16, who have emotional and behavioural difficulties and are at risk of exclusion, or who have been permanently excluded from mainstream school.

The Centre is planning to take part in another Big Tidy Up in spring, following which youngsters will create a single, much larger sculpture incorporating all of the recyclable items they find.
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