Woa Rhino Oxfordshire

Rhino Podcasts

This is an exciting project for Oxfordshire going into 2011 and one that has proven to be highly successful in other locations. Anything which drives visitor business around the county should be both applauded and embraced; and Visit Oxfordshire will look forward to working with the Woa! Rhino team to ensure its success".

John Hoy, Chief Executive Blenheim and Shadow Chair Visit Oxfordshire

News

Look out for lots of our project pictures and comments on our Facebook page.

We would also love to receive your experiences of the project as it unfolds and to use them alongside the PR that we create ourselves. Follow us on Twitter and "like" us on Facebook to follow our journey.

Rhino Podcasts

Lots of people will be sharing their views in our podcast series so make sure you keep an eye on our latest interviews! Brought to you in association with Focusbiz

Curriculum Pack signed off and printed

We are really pleased to announce that our Curriculum Pack has now been signed off and printed.

This pack has over 45 pages of material to help you make the most of this project. It includes lots of design and decorating ideas, cross-curriculuar links for a range of subjects and other activities such as drama to really challenge your pupils. All of this is backed-up by lots of web-based reference material that you can access as you wish.

The pack comes loose-leafed in a ring-binder for teaching convenience.

Below are some example pages. Others can be found on our school page elsewhere on this site.

Our pioneer school

We have started working with our first school in the County due to their requirement to run the project in the latter part of this summer term. Windmill School in Headington are the trailblazers and should give other schools plenty of inspiration to get involved from September onwards.

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To honour our promise to try and make each school project a bespoke activity, we arranged to deliver our mini-rhino in a real-life wooden lion crate from Cotswold Wildlife Park. This gave the project the required "wow-factor" that is now demanded of primary schools. We were also lucky enough to be able to persuade Bob, the educational officer from CWP, to do a short talk about the animals at the Park.

We have been encouraging the school and the children to document the progress of their project and we will report back soon.

Oxford Castle rhino gains gravitas

Oxford Castle's rhino came of age last week. After a few weeks work during Oxfordshire Artweeks month of May "Newton" was finished and varnished to protect him from the elements.

Sue Cook worked with pupils from John Blandy School in Southmoor to create the first Oxfordshire rhino. Inspired by flora and fauna from Millennium Park in Southmoor, Newton took on a natural feel complete with great crested newts. You can now see where the name originated. Child genius!

Oxford Castle are really happy with the way that the project went, attracting lots and lots of visitors, conversation and opportunities to engage with people of different ages and different backgrounds. The rhino and its current stable companion, Precious Commodity, will remain at the Castle for some time to come, participating in their Flower Festival and their UK from the Air exhibition. Signing up early obviously has its advantages as the profile period will total around 12 months in total once we reach the public trail period and the subsequent auction.

A rhino's home is her castle

Our two large rhinos are now happily settled in at Oxford Castle.

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Artist Sue Cook is working live in front of the public to design and decorate our first large sponsored scultpure. Inspiration for the design is coming from pupils at John Blandy School in Southmoor.

Yesterday was Oxford Castle's 5th Birthday bash and our rhinos got a lot of attention from guests and the public who were visiting the site.

The rhino will be decorated over the next couple of weeks and then will be involved in events like the forthcoming flower and garden festival.

Larking about in the park

We had a great time with pupils from John Blandy VC Primary School in Southmoor at Millennium Park.

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We all got together for a photoshoot after the children had spent time in a workshop with local artist Sue Cook discussing the design for their rhino. Oxford Castle have recruited both artist and school as part of an initiative for Artweeks. Sue has the challenge of designing and decorating the large sculpture in front of the public.

The design is set to be based on local flora and the great crested newt which is present at Millennium Park in Southmoor, close to Kingston Bagpuize.

More photos can be seen on our Facebook page

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