We are delighted to have finished another successful year of Look/Make/Talk at Kettle’s Yard, a Clore Duffield Foundation funded programme which offers eligible primary schools across Cambridgeshire a FREE facilitated visit, workshop and transport.
The funding was developed in response to the cost-of-living crisis and significant impacts felt in schools and communities following the COVID-19 pandemic, which resulted in additional pressures on school budgets. This has in turn meant less pupils were able to visit cultural organisations, such as Kettle’s Yard.
What happens during a Look/Make/Talk visit?
During a Look/Make/Talk visit pupils are guided through the Kettle’s Yard house and galleries by our Learning team. During their visit they are encouraged to explore through open discussion, drawing activities and deep looking games which promote their own critical and creative thinking skills to observe, make connections and explore ideas. Schools then participate in a creative workshop in the Clore Learning Studio, discovering how to transfer drawings into mono-prints. The session finishes with a reflection and review of each other’s work and experiences.
Celebrating 2024/25
Following the success of our 2023/24 pilot programme, we were fortunate to be able to grow our offer, inviting back 10 pilot schools and reaching out to three new schools. During 2024/25, Kettle’s Yard welcomed 501 primary school pupils from Reception to Year 6 to engage and create art with us. Of these, 87 pupils visited Kettle’s Yard for the first time (and for many of them it was their first trip to an art gallery or Cambridge). The Fenland District schools travelled the furthest, taking over 50 minutes to get to Kettle’s Yard. Moving forward we will continue to welcome more schools from further afield due to their limited access to art galleries or significant cultural spaces.
“A great opportunity and experience for our children this is the first time for many of our children visiting an art gallery – I will be returning.”
– Teacher from Guyhirn Primary School
We are so thankful for the 66 teachers, support staff and volunteer parents who also joined us across the year, and we are excited to be offering all staff from participating schools a free Creative Professional Development session in February 2026 to solidify and extend learning for progression back in school. We are aware how squeezed teachers are for time and want to enable them to feel empowered to use art as a brilliant tool for learning cross curricular whether they are an art specialist or not.
Feedback from teachers and school leaders who joined a Look/Make/Talk session shows the significant value and unique opportunity this supported programme provided their pupils and the wider school community.
“I feel this is such an enriching experience for the children, helps provide staff with CPD, and gives the children opportunities they wouldn’t otherwise have.”
– Teacher from Shirley Primary School“As a curriculum lead, I will be sharing the activities with my staff.”
– Teacher from Manea Primary School“We loved coming and it’s such a great springboard for further work back at school.”
-Teacher from Ridgefield Primary School
A highlight for me, which helped me to inform the future programme, was meeting the teachers and children from Winhills Primary School, a new Look / Make / Talk school. It was their first time visiting Cambridge and so they took the opportunity to combine their visit with a trip to the American Cemetery linked to their World War Two topic; this also helped gain buy in from senior leadership at the school as it was sold as a combined enrichment trip. Moving forward, we aim to develop resources to inform schools of additional free opportunities in the city to broaden their experiences during their supported visit.
Prior to their visit, the Winhills teacher gave an introduction of Kettle’s Yard using our website to her class, as they had anxieties about visiting a city. This has prompted our team to expand our pre-visit access information and produce a filmed social story which can be sent to schools prior to visits. It will introduce Kettle’s Yard within the locale, walk through the spaces which they will be visiting, explain the behaviours when visiting the house and gallery, and briefly demonstrate the content of the visit.
Another highlight of 2024/25 was being able to invite a selection of students from Teversham Primary School to display some of their outcomes as a part of Paint What Matters!, Kettle’s Yard’s first children and young people’s exhibition in the main galleries, which was displayed during February and March 2025. Many of the pupils, staff, and parents came to see the exhibition and it was a joy to see see how proud the young people were of their artworks.
Pupils fed back that the experience at Kettle’s Yard gave them the freedom to make choices, and ability to share what they have done, and understanding mistakes are not failures.
“What really made happy was painting, it really made me feel like myself.”
– Year 4 pupil from Guyhirn Primary School“I loved drawing anything we wanted to.”
– Year 5 pupil from Shirley Primary School“Some of the art could be whatever you wanted.”
– Year 6 pupil from Winhills Primary School“The art I did actually worked.”
-Year 3 pupil from Petersfield Primary School
Thank you so much to the schools, staff, pupils and parents who participated in this programme. We loved forging new relationships with you and hope to see these new connections flourish into the future.
