School Programs

Available for all exhibitions. In this facilitated tour, students engage with artworks up close, exploring themes, formal qualities, and cultural and social contexts through in-depth discussion and inquiry. Experienced Heide educators guide students through our exhibitions and spectacular grounds, drawing connections between art, place and ideas. Tours are tailored to suit your students’ needs and year level, and align with the Victorian Curriculum Foundation to Year 10. Whether encountering an iconic work for the first time or deepening an existing understanding, students are invited to look closely, think critically, and engage with modern and contemporary art in one of Melbourne’s most remarkable cultural settings.

Suitable for F-10. Programs are tailored to suit different year levels

Devised with Heide’s exhibition curators, our Create Art Workshops offer students a hands-on encounter with an aspect of each major exhibition artist’s creative practice. Workshops change with each exhibition, giving students a unique and timely opportunity to explore ideas and techniques drawn directly from the art on show. Combined with a facilitated Exhibition Tour, students move from looking and discussing to making, developing their own creative response in a real studio context. Programs are tailored to suit your students’ needs and year level.

Suitable for F-10. Workshops can be tailored to suit different year levels. Create Art Workshops + Exhibition Tours combine both an Exhibition Tour and an Art Workshop.

In this facilitated tour, students discover how Heide became the birthplace of Melbourne modernism, investigating the history of the fifteen-acre property from its significance as a Wurundjeri gathering place to the home John and Sunday Reed opened in 1934 to a circle of artists, writers and intellectuals including Sidney Nolan, Albert Tucker, Joy Hester and Mirka Mora.

Tours begin at Heide Cottage and Kitchen Garden, where it all began, before moving to Heide Modern — the ‘gallery to be lived in’ commissioned by the Reeds in 1963 and now regarded as an exemplar of modernist architecture in Australia — where exhibiting artists engage in a dialogue with the building’s bold architectural vision. Together the buildings, history and landscape tell the full story of one of Australia’s most remarkable cultural legacies.

Suitable for F-10. Programs are tailored to suit different year levels

Inspired by Mirka Mora’s vibrant mural on the Heide Cottage windows, students create their own artwork in collage or soft sculpture bringing to life the whimsical characters drawn from fairy tales, folk art and vivid daydreams that populate Mirka’s enchanting universe.

Suitable for F-10. Workshops are tailored to suit different year levels. Create Art Workshops + Exhibition Tours combine both an Exhibition Tour and an Art Workshop.

Heide has one of the largest collections of outdoor sculpture in Australia, including major works by Anthony Caro, Simryn Gill, Anish Kapoor and Inge King. In this facilitated tour, students view a range of sculptural works in the Heide Sculpture Park, investigating shape, form, texture and scale and consider the diverse materials and techniques artists utilise. Programs encourage reflective observations, collaborative learning and independent thinking.

Suitable for F-10. Programs are tailored to suit different year levels

This problem-solving workshop encourages students to explore the expressive potential of shape, form, space, colour, texture and light in relation to the surrounding environment as they create their own three-dimensional maquette for Heide’s sculpture park.

Suitable for F-10. Workshops are tailored to suit different year levels. Create Art Workshops + Exhibition Tours combine both an Exhibition Tour and an Art Workshop.