Freyja No Heya is a class designed to teach Art and Craft skills with English so both support the acquisition and retention of each other in a fun, warm and friendly environment. Learning in a group can be daunting for many children and feeling self-conscious in a classroom is a major obstruction to learning. When you use artwork, the focus is on the object rather than the individual and as we dis
cuss, make, play and create together, learning will be a natural and enjoyable experience. Learning whilst creating also provides opportunity for every child to develop their own sense of individuality, what they learn becomes part of who they are as well as what they know, this will build confidence when expressing themselves creatively and verbally. An important part of the class is the awareness and celebration of nature and the seasons. Every culture has different ways of naming and marking the passing of time, daily, weekly, monthly, seasonally and annually. These will be observed through the work we create, provide the foundation vocabulary we learn and serve as the natural rhythm for each term. I have hugely enjoyed creating this class and I am very excited to welcome all who would like to learn and create at Freyja no Heya! About Me
My name is Freyja Dean, I am an Artist, Designer and Teacher from England. My parents are both artists, my mother Amanda Dean is a Painter and Sculptor and my father, Roger Dean is an Architect and Album Cover Designer. I studied BA Scientific and Natural History Illustration and completed a course in Forensic Facial reconstruction at Cambridge University. After this I achieved a Masters degree in Art and Science from St Martins College of Art, London. We worked with scientists to create projects based on contemporary research. My education instilled in me a feeling of the importance of inter-disciplinary work and how different subjects of study involving the arts progress both. In my professional career I have made artwork, created designs for children’s computer games and the National Literacy Trust (UK), made anatomical models for the Royal College of Surgeons and given talks to schools as well as private tutoring. The visualization and description of concepts and systems have always been central to my practice. However, a huge influence in my ambition to create this class was my experience in Steiner schools. Rudolf Steiner’s philosophy of education was to learn through wonder, physicality, communication, stories and beauty, particularly in nature. This made the most basic lessons such as writing the alphabet an act of creating a beautiful thing. Learning was a joy, an exercise to be proud of and gifted me with skills I enjoy in that spirit to this day. It is this joy of learning to create artwork and express English with skill and dexterity I want to share in my class.
