Whitehouse Creative Partnerships
ARC is a Creative Agent for Dance City Creative Partnerships and is working with Whitehouse Primary School, to help answer the enquiry question - "to what extent will teaching science through creative cross-curricular work such as drama and dance enhance and motivate pupil's learning opportunities?"
Whitehouse is a larger than average mainstream Primary School including pupils with physical or medical difficulties that the local authority who benefit from an inclusive education in a mainstream school. The school has approximately 380 pupils and 45+ members of staff.
The school are working with Drywater, a creative company and are undertaking a series of creative approaches, which are designed to improve the skills of investigation to take science out of the classroom. They used visual arts, movement, drama and storytelling to instill and embrace the key skill of curiosity and open up the possibilities of science.
The outdoor area and woods were maximized as learning environments and links were made to everyday science, environmental science and dilemma stories. What is going on around us are we observant of collective habitats? Attuning our senses, body and mind working together to develop the critical faculty of wondering, reasoning and theorising.
CPD twilight sessions were also undertaken with KS1 and KS2 staff aimed at attuning staff to possibilities of outdoor learning opportunities around the school
Harewood Performing Stars
Performing Stars is a project aimed at Key Stage 2 pupils. Up to 30 children take part in weekly after schools sessions building towards a final performance.
Aims
- Build confidence and self-esteem
- Empower young people to lead on the project theme
- Develop creative skills
- Perform work to the whole school in a professional theatre setting
- Raise awareness of local cultural venues and different art forms
- Raise aspirations
Pupils at Harewood School devised a performance about two tribes, one love to sing and the other loves to dance, but what will happen when the two tribes meet?
The pupils worked with James Harris, Sam Allen and Urban Kaos to create a diverse and dynamic performance which wasperformed at ARC in June 2010.
The children taking part in the project are chosen by the school. The project is aimed at Key Stage 2 and is suitable for pupils of all abilities and experience, but ARC has found that pupils who do not normally get the opportunity to take part in the performing arts, in or out of school, respond particularly well.
MediaBytes
ARC and Grangefield School worked to develop the Mediabytes Festival, a bite sized guide to creative media careers. The whole project engaged over 500 young people and promoted creative job opportunities to young people from the local schools. The festival happened at ARC in February 2010.
Festival Project
The festival team was at the core of the Mediabytes project and comprised of 10 pupils from Grangefield School who planned and coordinated the two day festival. This incorporated planning sessions with artists, designing publicity and managing the event at ARC.
The Mediabytes Festival was a showcase for routes into creative and media careers and featured workshops on filmmaking, photography, script writing, animation and a showcase of young people's media work. This highlighted different career possibilities to raise the aspirations of young people.
Gaming Project
Teesside University worked with 11 pupils from Grangefield school on a project exploring gaming culture. One of the issues which was raised was that many young people play games which are aimed at an older target audience - in many cases they were playing games rated by the PEGI system as '18' and 'suitable only for adults'. This inspired the pupils to develop a game that was appropriate for their age range.
In all stages of the project, the students were encouraged to discuss and share their ideas, and collaborate and work together to solve problems and help each other to learn the software. The students felt that their games and animations were entertaining and would provide escapism and enjoyment for the other students who would watch and play them. The students led sessions in the festival for other young people to take part and try out their games.
Hands Micro Film Project
Scott Young from Scruff Productions worked with 5 young asylum seekers on a film project. Hands was a short film developed by the group of young people exploring cohesion and identity in a fun and non-agenda driven way. The idea behind the project was to conceive, design, produce, film, edit and screen a film over a series of short workshops. The film was thought of, developed and created in a total of 6 hours and made within the 'boundaries' and rules set by the young people themselves.
The main objective of the film was for the young people to explore the process of film making and acquiring new skills. The film was "by them, for them" highlighting the various roles and tasks needed to make a film.
Although the young asylum seekers involved didn't want the project to be issue driven, the film produced is about cohesion and integration, made in a really simple way. The film and discussuin around filmmaking was part of the two day festival programme.
Digi Dance Project
Tees Valley Dance worked with Our Lady and St Bedes School on the Dance Digital project, the programme of work explores the creation of choreographic material using digital tools. Through a series of workshops pupils worked with Poser and Isadora software to make choreographic material. The film of their work and discussion around the project was showcased at the festival.
Fairfield Performing Stars
Performing Stars is a 12 week project aimed at Key Stage 2 pupils. 34 children participated in weekly after schools sessions building towards a final performance.
Aims
- Build confidence and self-esteem
- Empower young people to lead on the project theme
- Develop creative skills
- Perform work to the whole school in a professional theatre setting
- Raise awareness of local cultural venues and different art forms
- Raise aspirations
Summary
Pupils at Fairfield School worked with a group of professionals in theatre, street dance and MC/ Rapping to create a diverse and dynamic performance which was performed at ARC in May 2010.
The 34 children taking part in the project were from years 4-6 and were of all abilities and experience. The project raised levels of self esteem within the participants and increased and developed their creative thinking skills, alongside building team working and negotiation skills.
Panel Talks
Are your students considering their next steps after leaving school or curious about how an arts venue operates?
ARC offers the chance for schools and colleges to bring groups of pupils to gain an insight into the job opportunities available in an arts organisation. The Panel Talk highlights the diverse range of jobs within our venue as well as the routes people have taken to get into these roles.
The Panel Talk comprises of an introduction to the venue, then a variety of members of staff speak about their role in the company and then concludes with a tour of the building.
Though originally developed to help pupils studying the Investigating Arts Organisations module at college the talks can be tailored towards the age and abilities of specific student groups.
Panel Talks are free for students groups attending any of our live theatre or dance performances.
Fredrick Natrass Creative Patnerships
ARC is a Creative Agent for Dance City Creative Partnerships and is working with Frederick Nattrass School in Norton. The school is in its second year of the change programme and this year have worked with Cap-a-Pie Associates to look at raising the levels of speaking, listening and writing skills of the pupils. The company worked with year 1 pupils to devise and create a performance Sarah's Fair with the children directing professional actors within their curriculum time and working as co-constructors of learning with the company. Within the project the company worked with other year groups to look at set design, marketing and parts of the performance.
The piece was performed at ARC in April 2010 and the company has also been working with the school on CPD sessions for the teaching staff and parents.
