Chichester High School Residency 2026
Where it started
In May, we invited 174 Year 7 students from Chichester High School to take part in an inspiring creative residency at Goodwood Art Foundation, culminating in a remarkable outdoor exhibition that celebrates collaboration, creativity, and connection with the natural world.
As part of the School in Residence Programme, all six Year 7 classes spent a full day immersed in contemporary art, creative exploration, and hands-on making. Upon arrival, each student received an Art Explorer Pack containing a sketchbook and a selection of drawing and mark making materials. Throughout the day, pupils were encouraged to use the pack to document their observations, ideas, and responses through drawing, writing, and creative notetaking. Designed as both a resource for the visit and a tool for continued exploration, the packs were theirs to keep, providing inspiration and prompts to support ongoing creative practice beyond their time at Goodwood Art Foundation.
Play and shared experiences
Guided by Artist Educators and the Learning Team, pupils began their day exploring Art in the Landscape and the galleries. Using tactile resources to encourage close observation and a playful approach to analysing artworks, students were invited to discuss, document, and share their responses. These activities helped them develop confidence in forming their own opinions about art while connecting with their peers through a shared creative experience. We introduced our new Word Bags, which support children in building their creative vocabulary, helping them discover new ways to think, talk, and write about art and their own creative experiences.
Hands-on making
Following lunch the groups split into smaller groups and rotated between a series of creative activities. Outdoors, students used sensory and observational techniques to respond to the woodland landscape. Through large-scale collaborative mark-making, pupils explored texture, light, shadow, movement, and sound. Using natural materials such as twigs and found objects as drawing tools, they created expressive rubbings and marks that captured their unique experiences of the environment in the present moment.
Back in the Learning Hub, observations from the morning became the starting point for printmaking. Inspired by both the artworks they encountered and the natural forms surrounding them, students experimented with monoprinting, screen printing, and relief printing. Together, they explored contrast, perspective, movement, and the relationship between positive and negative space while contributing to the creation of large-scale fabric banners.
The residency's outcome was a series of vibrant collaborative banners, each representing the collective creativity of the participating classes. Installed throughout the woodland during the May Half Term, the banners transformed the landscape into an outdoor gallery shaped by the imagination, ideas, and artistic responses of young people.
The project reflects the wider aims of the School in Residence programme: encouraging critical thinking, building confidence in self-expression, fostering collaboration, and promoting wellbeing through creative engagement and immersion in nature. By experiencing art as an active and shared process, students developed not only artistic skills but also a deeper connection to one another and the world around them.
The exhibition stands as a powerful celebration of what can be achieved when contemporary art, education, and the natural environment come together. We were delighted to welcome Chichester High School to Goodwood Art Foundation and to share the students' work with visitors throughout the exhibition period.
Get involved
As we look ahead to the next academic year, we look forward to welcoming more schools and connecting to our local school communities. If you are interested in finding out more about our School Residency’s please email learning@goodwoodartfoundation.org
