Henry Ward

Vita
PhD “Teaching as an Artistic Practice”. Middlesex University 2013

Employment
Langdon School, Teacher of Art, 1999-2000

Welling School, Teacher of Art, 2000-2001, Deputy Head of Art, 2001-2003, Head of Faculty of Art, 2003-2006, Director of Art, 2006-2013, Deputy Head Teacher, 2008-2013

BBC Bitesize, Blast and Broadband Learning Consultant, 2008–2016

South London Gallery Consultant (Teachers’ Forum), 2008-2012

Southbank Centre, Head of Education, 2014-2015

Freelands Foundation, Head of Education, 2015-

Selected Talks
Goldsmiths College; PGCE Secondary (Art), MA Artist Teacher, BA Fine Art

Greenwich University, Middlesex University, Roehampton University, Institute of Education, UCL; PGCE Secondary (Art)

Specialist Schools Conference, Tate Modern, Various Conferences, Tate Britain, Various Conferences, Presentation to the DfES, Innovation in Education, South London Gallery, Institute of Contemporary Arts, AIAE Conference, Dublin, Camberwell College of Art, Cubitt Gallery, V&A, Clore Duffield Foundation Fellows residential, Southbank Centre, Catalyst Club, Brighton, The Photographers Gallery, Arts Council Curation & Learning, Arts Council Collection

Publications
TES. 2016
A Dog in the Playground. 2016
Ernest Journal 3.2015
’10 Methods’ Q-Arts. 2013
AD Magazine. 2013
Journal of Education for Teaching 2012
Engage Journal 27.2011 & 22.2008
‘Education’ Whitechapel Gallery 2011
‘Doubletake’. SLG 2009
22 Tens. 2007
‘Social & Critical Practices in Art Education’ 2005
‘Assembly’ 2000

Abstract

A Dog in the Playground

My presentation will begin with a brief overview of my background as a teacher and artist, discussing my approaches to teaching and specifically addressing the development of teaching as a form of socially engaged artistic practice, beginning within the context of schools but also drawing on my experience within the cultural institution sector. I will refer to a number of existing practitioners including those who we might normally define as artists and those that would generally be defined as educators. I will then explain how these ideas were structured into a module for the post-graduate teacher trainee students at the Institute of Education, University College London (IoE/UCL). I will outline the areas that we covered in the project, including documentation of the workshops and lecture sessions that I facilitated, and explain how the students developed their own responses to acting as artist teachers in different school contexts. I will introduce the exhibition and publication that the project resulted in and discuss ideas about the importance of audience and context, both in relation to the student teachers’ practice and that of the school pupils that they were working with. My central position will be to argue that ‘teaching art’ can be a form of socially engaged artistic practice and that by adopting such a position a more liberating and progressive model of art education is possible.

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