Canterbury Primary School was looking for a new way to present the four school values of Respect, Responsibility,
Resilience and Cooperation. The Zart Magicube provided the perfect solution!

Student leadership and student voice are key to the teaching and learning at CPS. With the help of the Arts
Captains (Year 6 students elected by their peers) and Action Team Members (Year 3-6 students elected by their peers),
the possibilities for the Values Cube took shape. Each Level created an artwork about a specific value. Then each
class selected one artwork to represent their class. From these 25 artworks the Arts Captains selected one artwork
for each value.

Before commencing their artwork students explored different artists and techniques. They then planned for their
piece in a specific medium, depicting how they show their level value at school.

Level 1 – Explored mark making, line, colour and shape through a mixed media drawing about how they show
Cooperation.

Level 2 – Created a watercolour pencil planning drawing for a tissue paper collage inspired by Patricia
Mullins’s Crocodile Beat showing Responsibility.

Level 3 – Modelled a plasticine relief about Respect inspired by Barbara Reid.

Level 4 – Investigated the works of Peter Booth, Pablo Picasso, Edvard Munch, Andy Warhol and Janet
Culberston to understand why and how an artist makes artwork to inspire change or convey a message without words.
They designed and painted an image of how they show Resilience.

The Zart Magicube has nine faces in total. Four of the outside faces contain the values. School contact
information was printed on the fifth face with the last face blank. This blank face was the perfect place to
personalise the cube for each student by allowing them to draw or glue on an image of themselves.

When flipped around, three rectangular faces are revealed on the inside of the cube. Arts Captains and the Arts
Action team divided into three groups to work on these. They determined it would be useful to give students
strategies to use in the playground, ‘sentence starters’ and ideas for fun things to do in the
playground. Each mini action team met at lunch time every Monday during Semester 1 to plan and create what they would
like to include on their side. They considered appropriate text and images through consultation with their levels.
Each group explained how they would like their work arranged so that text and images could be combined in Photoshop
and Indesign.

Thank you to Zart Art for their help with organising the printing of the new Canterbury Primary Values Cube!

Dee Zabel
Canterbury Primary School
Suitable for Levels 1-4