Haileybury African Art Competition 2011

Brambletye has won the prize for the Outstanding School's Contribution to Art competition at Haileybury’s Prep and Primary Schools’ Art and Creative Writing Competition 2011, while Lochinver House in Hertfordshire won the Outstanding School's Contribution in the Creative Writing section of the competition. This year’s theme was “Africa”.

Brambletye were the overall Winner of the Art Competition and also won a special Master’s Choice Award. Other Brambletye artists gained success with first and second places in the various different age groups.

Haileybury’s Art Department received more than 1,000 entries for the competition. Children’s author Beverley Birch and Kenyan artist Mercy Kagia judged the finalists in each competition, selecting the overall age category and competition winners, and both were the guests of honour at the Art and Creative Writing Awards Ceremony and Exhibition, held last Saturday at Haileybury and attended by 500 prep and primary school children, parents and teachers. The Haileybury Prep and Primary Schools' Art Competition was first established in 2002 to give pupils from a wide variety of junior schools across the country the chance to express themselves creatively. In 2007, the Creative Writing element was introduced with great success, and numbers and the standard of entries have increased each year.

Haileybury’s Head of English, Nigel Parkin, declared this the best year yet in terms of the quality of entries. “Pupils were clearly inspired by the vastness and richness of the subject of Africa. A stunning range of poetry and prose was offered: trickster tales; exciting narratives highlighting the confrontation of man and beast; beautiful descriptions of landscapes and wildlife; profound reflections on conflict, poverty and suffering.

“Guided by expert and passionate teachers, pupils had clearly been thoroughly immersed in their explorations, emerging with a real sense of empathy and with a heightened moral, cultural, spiritual and even political awareness.”