Friday 2nd July dawned baking hot, just as the all previous days in June had in this part of the world. Andy Murray may have had a great challenge lie in front of him on centre court, but from my perspective mine was no less daunting - to make a mosaic in one day, involving 88 children aged between 4 & 11 years old.

Drawings had been commissioned -  the week before I had visited the school and addressed the children about the process of making a mosaic and took home about 300 drawings they had done for me while I was there. The theme was ‘wildlife’, a passion of the outgoing head teacher, Mr Catton, for whom this mosaic was to be created to mark his retirement after 27 years at the school. We had all sorts of wildlife to choose from, from badgers to cute spiders, newts, ladybirds by the dozen, dragonflies, frogs, a wobbly bird, tadpoles, a spiky hedgehog, a fox, butterflies, herons, bees, flies and many others. So many lovely ideas! I sorted the ones most suitable for mosaic (the simplest), their drawings were scaled up on a photocopier and a layout (above) was created.

Time to make the mosaic! The children were rotated in groups of 8-10, they came all day and some even wanted to work through lunch and break! We had a wonderful indoor/outdoor area in which to work,  with lots of shade and space. The children tackled the project with enthusiasm, the older children working fantastically well with the younger ones, everyone patiently awaiting their turn.  Predictably, smashing the tiles was a great draw, but sticking and arranging the pieces engrossed the children just as much. With the help of a teacher and a dedicated parent helper, who worked tirelessly with us all day in the heat, we nearly finished, thwarted only by my underestimating the background by one tile.... many, many thanks to them both!

I didn’t quite manage to take better pictures of the mosaics at the end of the day (too tired!), but I’ll be back next week to tidy up the detail of the mosaics and will post better ones then.

Disappointingly the day was not to end happily for everyone - too bad for Andy Murray - but game, set and match to Radwinter School! Well done everyone!