Mr Peake’s Form IV tutees have been busily baking before Christmas, but instead of mince pies and Christmas puddings they’ve been creating tree decorations!

The boys have spent their lunch and form times rolling, modelling, stamping, cutting, tidying and glazing a range of decorated relief ceramic Christmas tree decorations; no two are the same but all of them look excellent.

Images have been added onto the decorations using stamps and relief patterns and these were created with decorative Indian textile printing blocks. Some designs have words incorporated which have been done by pressing pasta letters into the soft clay and simply allowing them to burn away in the kiln at 1040 degrees. Small holes for hanging and paint-on glazes were then applied and the colour rubbed back from the raised surface leaving the glaze to emphasize the coloured patterns and texture. Finally a clear glaze was applied to make them lovely and shiny!

All of that hard work is now being put towards a very good cause as these decorations are being sold in school to raise money for the Orchid-Fighting Male Cancer charity. Well done boys, let us know how much you raise when they’ve all gone!