What our tapestry is about :
The themes were 'Where I live' and 'Play'.  Our children come from all parts of the county so we were able to include all the main features of Northumberland.  We are a special school with pupils who travel into Morpeth on bus and taxi from Alnwick, Amble, Hexham and also Rothbury and beyond.  The children were extremely interested in the development and creation of this and felt it was definitely about them and their world.

How we made our tapestry :
Years 7, 8 and 9 were taken around Morpeth to sketch the places they visited most.  Back at school we painted the pictures and did more drawings/paintings of pupils' own neighbourhoods.  This gave us the variety of scenery, their houses, local beaches or farms from which to draw on for our final design.  The project took about ten weeks of work, mostly with withdrawal groups from each of the three year groups.  At one point all of year 8 were involved in learning finger knitting, and the yards of knitting they produced were successfully used to frame up the pictures which composed the whole.  Skills used by the children to make the tapestry included selecting suitable materials - colours and patterns were important.  Also, arranging the final design which had modified along the way.  They suggested including the year '2000' and added quite a few original ideas which hadn't been part of the initial plan.  They enjoyed the social contact with staff and other pupils whilst engaged in communal effort.