25 Jul 2025
A team of Year 10 and Year 12 students alongside art staff have been working with London Colney Parish Council to brighten up the area around Haseldine Road.
They have now completed a mural on the wall overlooking the car park which had previously been used for graffiti and St Albans district council (SADC) was going to whitewash the wall to clean it up. The parish council felt this would be a
blank canvas for more graffiti so they reached out to Samuel Ryder Academy to ask if they could help by creating a mural of what it is like to be a teenager in 2025.
Kelly Wilkinson, head of art at Samuel Ryder Academy was delighted to be asked to solve the problem and reached out to her associate Eve Broadhurst to help with a design.
Eve explained: “I took inspiration from the publication Teen Breathe which is a magazine for teenagers about all elements of life and features a wonderful range of illustrations that narrate the thoughts, celebrations and challenges of young people.
“This mixed with the wonderful submissions from Samuel Ryder students gave a great body of elements to choose from and I edited them back to give us a realistic plan for our painting days in July.
“The skeleton of the mural consists of abstract organic shapes that suggest life and movement, inspired by Matisse, these give regular building blocks to the design which is essential with large scale work.
“Next we have designs taken from the students’ work in mid-scale features such as the Earth, a group of friends and eyes open and shut (to show the learning and rest teenagers need to grow), a rainbow, a phone, a lightbulb, a megaphone and finally we have smaller dotted symbols of the more specific elements the students referenced such as social media icons, academic symbols (book, trophy etc).
“The text is from the students as well and gives the overall message for the piece: be bold, different, brave and full of life.”
Cllr Vicki Hopcroft, chair of events and community at LCPC said: “We have had constant problems with graffiti and fly-tipping around this area, and we decided to brighten up the
area up. Samuel Ryder Academy students have delivered a bright and beautiful mural to bring cheer to the village.”
SRA’s Kelly Wilkinson said: “The parish council threw us a
challenge, and the school was delighted to help. A team of students from Year 10/12 volunteered to paint the mural with art teacher Rianna Roston which was actually designed by our students with the guidance of Eve Broadhurst. Everyone was pleased to be of service to the community.”
Head of school Kyle Barry added: “We are incredibly proud to have partnered with London Colney Parish Council on this inspiring community project. As a school, we are committed to being a true community hub – one that contributes meaningfully to our local area and gives our students opportunities to make a lasting impact beyond the classroom.
