Lighting a creative spark in schools

By Donald Hiscock

Creativity in all media is being encouraged

Providing the images for a digital advent calendar and producing an animated film are just two parts of a scheme to tap into pupils' creative talents.

The Creative Partnerships project, run by Arts Council England, has put children living in deprived areas in touch with professional artists.

Next April sees the beginning of phase two.

By 2006, another 20 areas will benefit from the partnerships, to add to the original 16.

The Department for Culture, Media and Sport and the Department for Education and Skills are putting an extra £70m into the scheme.

Adventure

So, what is the money funding?

Children at Springvale Primary School in Penistone, South Yorkshire, have worked on a multi-media project about the blind mathematician, Nicholas Saunderson, who lived in the area in the 17th Century.

Jose Mountford, creative director for Barnsley, Doncaster and Rotherham, said: "Many of the children in this area don't travel very far from home, so going down to Cambridge University to visit the college where Saunderson worked was a real adventure."

Working with professional film-makers the pupils produced an animation exploring mathematical concepts.

The content was linked to the requirements of the national curriculum.

The film, Nic's Problems, was shown at the Showcomotion Festival in Sheffield.

£70m is being spent boosting creativity

The school is currently working on a community sculpture dedicated to the mathematician.

"Being involved in this partnership has kicked off a lot of creativity in the school and we're now planning to do things we wouldn't have considered before," says Springvale's deputy head teacher, Andy Platt.

Students at Mullion Secondary School, Cornwall, have also turned their creative talents to the moving image.

A group of 15 and 16 year olds with problems settling in to mainstream education have been working on an electronic advent calendar.

The web calendar is hosted by the Watershed media centre in Bristol.

"I worked with the students over six sessions," says film-maker Laura Hardman. "After a lot of discussion, we decided to explore the issue of judging people by their looks.

"This is where our theme of good and bad angels came from. Two of the girls played the role of angels in their film."

Excluded children

The school's calendar contribution called for careful film preparation.

After some early instruction on technique, the students did all the planning and production work.

"It was great for this particular class to receive the praise that they did," adds Hardman.

"They worked very hard and I was always impressed to see how much work they had done on the project in between my visits to the school."

For Laura Martin at Creative Partnerships Cornwall this project went a long way towards meeting the requirements of the scheme.

"It was all about creativity. It involved a class who have been excluded from education and, what's more, they had a ball and felt good about themselves," she said.

"One girl even went out and bought a suit especially for the official launch of the calendar."

Now other areas of the country are planning activities for phase two, which begins in September 2004.

"We are planning to build on our strength with music provision in the city to widen opportunities for all children," says Southampton's chief inspector for education, Rosemary Tong.

If the experience of the current partnerships is anything to go by, they will probably create one heck of a sound.