The collaboration with Sherborne Girls and the wider Sherborne Schools Group has been a year-long partnership centred on climate, sustainability, and creative engagement.

The initiative has brought together artists, scientists, educators, and pupils to explore environmental issues through an interdisciplinary lens, creating opportunities for sustained collaboration both within the school and across the local community. By combining research with creative practice, the project enabled participants to engage with complex ideas in ways that were exploratory, thoughtful, and rooted in real-world contexts.

The programme included exhibitions, lectures, workshops, and fieldwork, all designed to deepen understanding of environmental challenges while encouraging creative responses. Pupils engaged with themes such as energy use, biodiversity, and environmental change, producing work across a range of formats including visual art, scientific research, writing, and music. These outputs reflected a strong connection between knowledge and expression, while the lecture series and community events extended the conversation beyond the classroom, encouraging dialogue around sustainability and individual responsibility.

The collaboration between Cape Farewell and Sherborne Girls has strengthened connections between the school and the wider Dorset community. Through a sustained year-long partnership, the programme embedded artistic practice within the curriculum while opening conversations about climate, culture and the arts. Drawing on Cape Farewell’s 25-year history of working with international artists, students engaged with International artworks which reframe the climate crisis as a cultural and human story, building confidence to explore complex environmental issues through their own creative responses. 

The impact extended well beyond the classroom. Sherborne Girls hosted a film screening for pupils and the local public, including a Director Q&A, creating a shared space for reflection and dialogue around art and climate science. River-based workshops, science days, and hands-on sessions at The Watershed, Cape Farewell’s HQ, provided students and community members with direct experience of local ecosystems and environmental challenges. The coverage of the partnership in The Sherborne Times and Dorset Magazine has raised Cape Farewell’s profile locally, highlighting the organisation’s role in connecting contemporary art, climate education, and community engagement. 

For Cape Farewell, the project has been central to its mission of using art to inspire climate awareness. The programme established a sustainable, school-based model for climate art education, embedding long-term collaboration, inquiry-led learning, and creative exploration. This shows how art, science, and community together can foster awareness, dialogue, and responsibility, while raising Cape Farewell’s profile as a cultural and educational leader in climate engagement.

The Sherborne Times

Cape Farewell – a partnership with Sherborne Girls

By Dylan Lloyd, Head of Art, Design & Technology

In Dylan Lloyd’s article for Sherborne Times  he sets out the reasons why he embarked on Sherborne Girls’ wide ranging partnership and year-long project with Cape Farewell, a leading leading international charity that brings together artists and scientists to address climate change with its HQ in Dorset.  Dylan writes,”As I took stock after my first year as Head of Art at Sherborne Girls, an idea formed of Sherborne Girls working in partnership with the charity on a prolonged project which would not only reinforce the way I feel Art should be taught, but would bring huge opportunities for pupils and local residents alike by bringing world-leading experts in their field to our collective doors.”