Revisiting Firing Up
A learning initiative established in 2010 to help reignite taught ceramics in schools across the UK
In 2010, with generous support from the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation and Paul Hamlyn Foundation, the Crafts Council launched a national schools programme titled 'Firing Up'. Over the course of the three years that Firing Up ran, the project aimed to reinvigorate craft education in schools and to reignite students' creativity through ceramic craft. Firing Up was an ambitious project that looked to reverse the decline in ceramics education in schools through developing partnerships between schools, Higher Education Institutes, and the maker community.
Firing Up worked with incredibly talented and dedicated local partners across 11 regions. Together we offered schools targeted programmes of local support and specialist continued professional development workshops for teachers, all provided by Higher Education Institutes and networks of local craft makers. Over the course of the programme we partnered with 63 schools and provided 161 teachers with six weeks of specialist ceramics workshops.
Student from Dormer Wells School. Photo: Sarah Christie Student from Northolt School. Photo: Caroline Heron
As part of the Crafts Council’s long-term commitment to ensuring sustained opportunities for the teaching of ceramics, we also worked with schools to refurbish and replace kilns. With the help of Potclays and Potterycrafts, 18 new kilns were fitted and 27 kilns were refurbished as part of Firing Up. Local ceramists also worked with our partner schools to deliver one day workshops for an astonishing total of 3,680 students.
We also worked with the Clayground Collective, a group dedicated to working with, and teaching about, clay to develop a skill-based project for delivery in school workshops, that explored the uses, functions and histories of clay. Clayground Collective also helped us to produce the Firing Up Handbook.
“Our students are getting real hands-on, not just experience, but also guidance, in terms of their opportunities”
- Jo Moores, Firing Up Teacher
Firing Up provided the foundation for our Learning team's work with Make Your Future and a best practice model for delivering sustained support for craft education in schools. This work has nurtured vital partnerships that we still cherish today.
To find out more, please download the Evaluation Report.