The Grove School has been helped by a charity to provide a pottery Kiln for the school, and its timed well as it coincides with the Schools GCSE art exhibition too.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00Hello guys, we're at the Grove School, and a fantastic bit of kit behind you.
00:04Your school's got a brand new kiln. Miss, you're the art teacher, is that right?
00:07Yes, that's right, yes.
00:08What's your name, madam?
00:09Sarah Clark.
00:10What does it mean then to be having this as a tool?
00:12Oh, it's been an amazing project, and it's been a real community effort,
00:17and we've raised money together to get the kiln running,
00:21which, I mean, when we first started this in September,
00:24I did not think by the summer term we would have this installed.
00:28So I'm absolutely delighted, it's been brilliant.
00:31So we've managed to move very quickly.
00:34And it's thanks to these two gents that the kiln's here.
00:37Yeah.
00:38Just introduce yourselves, gents, and what's your role in this?
00:41Yeah, my name's Brian Stambridge, I'm the chairman of the PMI Ceramic Trust Fund,
00:45and my colleague...
00:46I'm David Cannell, I'm the treasurer for the PMI Trust Fund.
00:49So you got wind that the school were after a kiln, in need of a kiln?
00:53Yeah, thanks to the algorithms on my iPhone there,
00:57it popped up as a notification,
00:59and I saw Sarah's article in the Shropshire Star,
01:02which led me then to the radio article that she did,
01:05and I live locally as well, so I know the school,
01:09but it was very sad to see that the school couldn't follow through
01:13with the firing of their clayware.
01:15Yeah.
01:16And with a few contacts, with a friend at Oak Ceramics down in Roosley,
01:21we were able to procure the kiln at a real knockdown price,
01:24and then send it to, again, somebody who's a kiln engineer,
01:27and we got the kiln refurbished at probably 30% to 40% of a new cost,
01:33which helped the school.
01:35And we put some money, a great amount towards it,
01:40the school and the art centre raised money,
01:42and as Sarah said, in probably six months we procured the kiln,
01:46transported it from Roosley to Newcastle-under-Lyme,
01:49had it refurbished with a local engineer,
01:52and installed it about Easter time.
01:55Yes, yeah, it's amazing.
01:56And then got it up and running through a few start-up issues,
02:00but now up and running, which is great news for the school and the kids,
02:03and hopefully as many good years out of it,
02:06because you've got 20-odd years out of the last one.
02:08Oh, yeah, more like 50.
02:10Yeah, a long time.
02:12And you can see this has been the first firing of the things already,
02:16you know, the clay already, so we're very much, you know,
02:20embraced it and got, you know, get going with the students and clay.
02:24It means a lot to us, because we're starting people at a young age.
02:28That's inspiring, yeah.
02:30Getting them into ceramics and colours and materials,
02:33and if some of that leads to, you know,
02:36working in either an arts or a science ceramics,
02:40then it's ticked all the boxes for us.
02:42Yeah, it's fantastic.
02:44Fantastic project, well done, guys.
02:46And it's your GCSE art exhibition tonight,
02:48so it's kind of nice to show that off as well tonight, isn't it?
02:51Oh, it is, yeah, no, it's absolutely brilliant.
02:53So I put the two things together, and I thought it would be really lovely.