We designed stunning Wall Art for St Benet Biscop Catholic Academy.
St Benet Biscop Catholic Academy in Northumberland is a learning community that strives to empower pupils to become the best they can be.
Their approach to teaching and learning is rooted firmly in the values of the gospel, while the school’s Mission Statement provides the foundations for all they do;
- To seek wholeness through faith,
- Quest and Learning
- To become what God intends us to be
The school is named after St Benedict Biscop, one of the Northern Saints. He was a scholar who, inspired by multiple visits to Rome, worked with glaziers from France to introduce stained glass to the UK.
The Wall Art brief
With their school’s namesake in mind, the team at St Benet Biscop Catholic Academy were keen to transform their hall with a ‘colourful and beautiful’ stained-glass style design.
They took further inspiration from the artwork style produced by Lindisfarne Scriptorium, a small business based on an island off the coast of Northumbria. The business sells books and artwork that draw the viewer into an experience of prayer, meditation and blessing.
The brief was to combine the messages and visuals across the space in a single, holistic design. This was preferable to creating standalone designs for each section of the hall. So the Promote Your School team created and illustrated the full piece from scratch.
Core values
St Benet Biscop Catholic Academy is a faith school and students travel from across Northumberland to attend. With this in mind, we featured landmarks from local towns to make all students feel welcome. And this represents their journey to become ‘what God intends us to be‘.
In addition to the school’s Mission Statement, the school team also wanted the design to reflect their 5 core values;
Integrity, Respect, Excellence, Resilience, and Self-Discipline.
We reflected these values in the design alongside relevant Bible quotes and images.
A space for all
As a large, communal space, we wanted to make the area feel warm and welcoming to all pupils.
With this in mind, we used nature as a calming backdrop.
So it features trees and flowers, sunshine with bright beams of light, a vibrant rainbow and a restful dove of peace.
Local landmarks and heroes
Every building in the school is named after a Northern Saint. These Saints are celebrated in the Wall Art, alongside the areas or landmarks they’re associated with.
Within the Wall Art designs (pictured above), each Saint has a shield with an icon to represent what they’re known for;
- St Aidan (Celtic Cross)
- St Hilda (Monastery)
- St Benet Biscop (Book)
- St Cuthbert (St Cuthbert’s Cross)
- St Bede (Writing)
- St Oswald (Wearing a crown as he was King)
- St Wilfrid (Boshop’s Crozier – staff – and Bishop’s mitre – hat)
North East locals will also recognise the many landmarks featured in the designs, including the Lindisfarne and Durham Cathedral (below).
Bringing the walls to life
Owing to the intricate details within the designs, this was a challenging (but rewarding!) job for our installation team.
As the artwork represented a single design across multiple spaces of the hall, we needed to line up every element in the designs so they would render well once printed.
The school also needed a robust and durable product as the hall is used often by a large volume of pupils. So we applied a mix of materials to ensure the Wall Art would look fantastic and last a long time too.
“We’re absolutely delighted with the end result. We are also very grateful we had the opportunity to work on such a beautiful and inspiring project.”
– Helen Wilson, North East Consultant Promote Your School.
Wall Art for schools – North East England
Helen (pictured below) is our regional consultant in the North East.
She travels around Tyne and Wear, helping schools achieve their improvement goals through stunning Wall Art by Promote Your School;
“It’s wonderful to see so many schools bringing local North East landmarks to their walls. I would have loved to see these on the walls when I was at school!
I love to visit schools to see their Wall Art after installation. It’s very rewarding to hear directly from teachers and pupils, and see first-hand, the impact of our bespoke Wall Art”. – Helen Wilson, North East Consultant
