We have been receiving lots of positive feedback from our learners who have attended Art and Craft courses in Powys, with tutor Deborah Jenkins-Doyle, so we thought we’d share a bit about Deborah and the great work she does. . .
Following the completion of her PGCE in 1996, our very experienced tutor Deborah, spent several years teaching Travel and Tourism in Further Education. She lived in Australia and Southeast Asia before returning, and completing her TESOL qualification. After meeting her military husband, she spent a number of years living overseas and teaching EFL in Germany, before teaching Art and Crafts.
Tutor Deborah Jenkins-Doyle says, “On returning to the UK, I started a small Art and Craft business called ‘Snobby Hobby’, where I made a wide variety of products and was soon inundated with commissions. At the beginning of last year, I started working for Addysg Oedolion Cymru | Adult Learning Wales, teaching ESOL in Llandrindod Wells, which I love! Then, last October I also began teaching Art and Craft. These are both areas that I am extremely passionate about!”
Deborah teaches three separate courses with us in Newtown and Welshpool, for our partner organisation – Ponthafren. These six-week courses cover a range of Art and Crafts each week. In these lessons, our learners can learn and develop new skills to take home and develop artworks further. A huge emphasis in these lessons is to promote positive mental health, and encourage learners who may otherwise rarely see other people, or indeed even leave their homes, to enjoy the benefits of making great work and engage with others. Each groups have a variety of learners from all backgrounds, ages, and abilities.
Deborah says, “We all have a fabulous time during the sessions and the learners do indeed make new friends which is just lovely to see! To anybody who has an interest in Art and Crafts be it, painting, macrame, paper flower making, clay work and mosaic work to name a few, come along and try it out! It doesn’t matter if you have never done anything creative before – this is your chance to have a go, with the support of your tutor and your peers. You will meet new people, make new friends, and take home a different project each week, which is a huge sense of achievement!
The learners are always enthusiastic about the crafts they are learning. The last crafts we made; paper flowers on Valentine’s Day were particularly popular, and everyone enjoyed making them! On several occasions I have had learners say to me, “I’m not creative” to which I always answer, “Everybody has an element of creativity within them – We just need to coax it out sometimes!”
To anyone who is interested in joining our Art and Crafts lessons, I would say; just pop in and meet us – we are a very friendly group! We are like one big family, and learners often tell me that they really look forward to the classes. Some learners suffer with anxiety, but once they have arrived at the venue, their worries disappear. We spend time participating in a craft project with lots of chatter and laughter along the way. Our lessons have a relaxed atmosphere, and we welcome all. Spending time with fellow crafters has such a positive impact on mental health. Seeing the learners’ confidence levels rise is just fantastic!
Although each of the Art and Craft courses are in 6-week blocks, our learners tend to then enroll onto the next block! These courses provide learners with the confidence to take on projects, and enroll onto courses that they may have never done before.”
We’d like to congratulate Deborah on her dedication to creating a fun, engaging and a supportive environment for our learners to get creative, and learn new skills! We’re so happy that we’ve received such great feedback from our learners and look forward to seeing what they create in Deborah’s classes next!
To read more about our Art Design and Media courses, click here.
