The first network meeting for all artists / creatives who work with children and young people will take place on Thursday 14th July at 6.00pm at the AE Harris Building on 110 Northwood Street, Jewellery Quarter, Birmingham, B3 1SZ.

Thank you for those who have already booked with Janine Barnett. For those of you who haven’t and would like to attend you would be most welcome and please let Janine know if you plan to come along janine.barnett@wlv.ac.uk

The purpose of this first meeting will be to explore this key question:

What might an effective regional network offer and do?

We will be using an open space facilitation style. The outcomes of this session will then be shared at a second network meeting planned for Thursday 8th September.

Next steps: September School

We will also use this opportunity to discuss with you what professional development offers you think would be useful to you. This will then inform the planning of the September School which will take place on 7th and 8th September (provisional dates) at the AE Harris Building. We’re delighted to announce that Jan Roman, director of Black Country Children’s Services Improvement Partnership (BCCSIP), will address the September school on Wednesday 7th September.

To reserve a place in advance for the September School please email bookings@creativealliance.org.uk Places can be booked for just one or both days at a cost of £15 / day which will cover food and refreshments.

We very much look forward to welcoming you on 14th July.

Black Country Creative Partnerships is proud to present this exhibition of pupils work from across the Black Country, Telford & Wrekin and Shropshire at the Mailbox in Birmingham. This is an exciting Development to showcase work that was made in schools in a commercial setting, as it will give the work an appropriate framework. I work with a number of schools where pupils & staff work hard on producing excellent artwork, which is often not seen outside the school and its community.

Wishing all the schools participating good luck. And please come and see it!

Downloads

http://www.irisbertz.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/Mailbox-Exhibition-Invitation.pdf

For more information

http://www.royalacademy.org.uk/education/a-level-summer-exhibition-online/

Highlights for adults:

• Investigate the science of survival with Helen Keen (Channel 4 NewComedy Writing Award Winner) in as she tells of the frozen world ofearly Arctic exploration and her own humid family history
• Join specialist science guides on the Daring Diversity walking tourto discover why Newton poked a needle in his eye and why Darwin’snickname was ‘Gas’
• Discover the science of humour as Psychologist Professor RichardWiseman describes his year-long search for the world’s funniest joke

Highlights for families:

• Hands on activities in Colourful Creatures at the Museum of Zoology
• Learn what happens when lasers and jam doughnuts collide with Dr Evil
• Discover the world of waves, gases and chemistry with The NakedScientists as they detonate bombs, electrocute vegetables, and turn airinto a liquid!

Full programme online at: www.cambridgescience.org or please call 01223 766766 to request a hard copy.

About the School

Clehonger School is a small rural primary school five miles south of Hereford city. Our children come both from the village itself and from the outskirts of the city. We are proud of our Values based ethos and of the well behaved and enthusiastic pupils. (Please check out our website www.clehongerschool.co.uk )

About the project

Our Y5 and Y1 children have been thinking about what makes good learning and have come up with the following ideas: painting, modeling, role play, drama, outside work, ICT stuff, discussion, and writing. They are ‘active learners’. They are particularly keen to learn more about theatre, drama, film and story making. There may be an opening for one versatile company or two artists, whose skills complement each other.
We want to engage children in different kinds of writing through this process: As practitioners you do not have to worry about this too much but it may help in your application if you can demonstrate an interest in creative learning.

This is our enquiry question

How can we encourage children to become enthusiastic writers with a real sense of purpose and relevance for their writing?
Project details and objectives:
Y5 & 1 want to create a project during the summer term, with support from an artist who can help them with skills their every day teachers do not have.

This is what the children say

We would like someone who listens and helps us to do things our own way; someone with a good imagination and lots of ideas. Someone calm, but confident.
We are excited, funny, sporty and artistic. We are hard working.

This is what the adults say

We are keen to work with one or two practitioners who can help the children realise their vision of creating a theatre project (whether live or film based). The younger children are interested in stories and how they become films or animations, while the older group are fascinated by all the different roles that may be involved in producing a piece of film or theatre. The project is particularly exciting because we have no pre-conceived ideas of our end product and it is very much the result of whole class discussions. We hope that we will all learn new skills and have opportunities to be more creative and innovative.

The project can run as two parallel themes or be a joint project between the two classes.

Nuts & Bolts

Available budget to pay external partners:
The total budget for the project is £4,000 which will cover all project costs including partner’s time, expenses, materials and all other project costs. The successful practitioner, the school, and the Creative Partnerships Agent will confirm the breakdown of the budget and the number of days during the early planning stages before a contract is signed.

Please write to us and demonstrate:

• An outline of your practice and your personality in a learning environment
• how your practice contributes to children’s learning.
• An ability to work collaboratively with teachers and young people.
• An understanding of our enquiry question and the relevance of your skills.

Please forward your letter of application to…

Sue Jones smjones@clehonger.hereford.sch.uk
Adrian Higgins adrian@artisticinteriors.co.uk
Application deadline: 21 March 2010
Notified shortlist : 24 March 2010
Interviews: 29 March 2010 Clehonger Primary School.

Estimated timescale of the project

Project planning, delivery and evaluation during the summer term 2010.
NB: In addition to your letter of application
Please also provide a relevant CV and two references from providers you have worked in partnership with before.
If you are not available for interview if/when called this may invalidate your tender.
If you tender as an organisation then the person who will work directly with teachers, children and young people must be the person attending interview.
A current Enhanced CRB Disclosure and public liability insurance of at least £ 5million is a condition for application.
If you require any further information about the school and our aspirations for our Creative Partnership programme, please do not hesitate to contact Adrian Higgins on 0797 1588832 or email adrian@artisticinterios.co.uk
For more information about our school – please go to www.clehongerschool.co.uk
For more information about Bright Space – please go to www.brightspace.org.uk
For more information about CP – please go to www.creative-partnerships.com