ABSTRACT
This chapter explores a portrait of Oak Tree School, a primary school in the Midlands of England. Oak Tree had been inspected by Ofsted in December, after Lesley had accepted the job but before she started work in January. The‘space issue’ was a reference to Oak Tree’s architecture and also to the use of space in and around the building. The artists’ main response to what they saw was frustration, though they checked themselves to say that‘it’s good that we were frustrated because it made us work harder’. The artists explicitly raised the question of signs and symbolism in the school. The artists’ analysis was also fundamental to the school’s decision to dismantle setting arrangements for literacy and numeracy, which had existed throughout the school when Lesley took up her post. One of the voice and space issues for staff at Oak Tree was the lack of a proper staff room.
