Chichester College lanterns delight visitors at festive school event

Chichester College students made a West Sussex school’s Winter Trail even more magical.

Art & Design students made 15 beautiful light installations, which served as festive centrepieces in the woodland area at Buckingham Park Primary School.

The designs, including a penguin, igloo, turtle and even a two-metre long dragon, were part of the school’s first ‘Winter Trail’ which was organised by PTA volunteers and school staff.

Kasha Sawosko, course leader at Chichester College, said: “This was a fantastic project for our students to work on.

“The school gave us creative freedom to interpret their ‘winter trail’ theme, which allowed our students’ imaginations to run wild.

“They have spent the past weeks working on the lanterns, and then installing them at the school and then adding lights to create a stunning installation of artwork for visitors to enjoy. It has been wonderful to see their growth as the project developed, and the feedback we have received has been outstanding.”

Arthur, one of the students involved in the making the lanterns, revealed: “I enjoyed being part of a project that will hopefully bring joy to lots of people.

“I learnt to work with willow as this was a new medium. I enjoyed the work and used my new skills in a college project and I was also asked to draw the illustrations for the event which was a good learning experience.

“The event turned out great, the work really paid off and the lanterns looked amazing.” 

Fellow student Milly added: “The process of choosing where to hang the lanterns and adding each final touch to them was my favourite part because I really felt like I had a say in what went where.

“Even though there were some doubts about how the lighting would turn out, the reveal at the end of the day was truly magical and made it all worthwhile. Such a great experience!”

Meanwhile, Hannah was delighted by the reactions of the pupils at the school. She noted that “As someone who never volunteers for things like this, setting up the willow lanterns was an experience. I enjoyed every aspect of displaying these lanterns.

“Seeing the children get excited as we carried them through the school to where they were being displayed put a smile on my face, knowing we were doing something special for them to remember.

“I hope to have many more experiences like this in the future as it was an amazing opportunity working with such amazing people.”

Nearly 700 people visited the Winter Trail, and many shared feedback about the Chichester College lanterns which praised the students’ work and talent. Comments included: ‘the skill level was amazing, overall we were hugely impressed’ and ‘you could see how much thought and work had gone into them’.

It was summed up as being a ‘magical Christmas experience for the whole family’.

Madeleine Voice of Buckingham Park School PTA said: “The collaboration with Kasha and Chichester College enhanced our event enormously.

“The installations looked amazing and all of the children and families thoroughly enjoyed them. Thank you so much for all your hard work we are hugely grateful and hope you can come back next year!”