Giving Portsmouth a Jump Start in arts and cultural provision for children and young people

Jump Start has taught us how we The People can work, what we can offer Artswork schools…we’re able to develop our New Theatre Royal ways of working and how we can actually related to the curriculum. Portsmouth Cultural Trust Aspex Gallery Primary and Secondary schools across Portsmouth Liz Weston, Learning & Participant Consultant, New Theatre Royal

The Project schools in the area. Jump Start was shaped out of a consortium partnership between Aspex Gallery, Portsmouth The partners brought a range of experience to the Cultural Trust and the New Theatre Royal, that project: centered on the needs of children and young people in Portsmouth, with a programme that New Theatre Royal then spanned out across the boroughs of • Experience in Education and Outreach , Cowplain, Hayling Island and Fareham. work. Working with children and young The consortium pooled their specialist areas of people aged 5 to early 20s. expertise (visual arts, music and theatre respectively) to work with primary and secondary

Portsmouth Music Hub’s hands-on activity at the Arts Expo Aspex Gallery Michael Rosen kept the session fun • Engaging almost exclusively with primary through his interactions with the age children. Establishes regular children, and the illustrations from workshops with local schools. Neal Layton were inspirational. Portsmouth Cultural Trust

• Developing its Education and Outreach work. Engaging with students. A regional reputation as a music venue, plus building its visual arts offer Teacher, Arundel Court through new exhibition spaces.

The Jump Start programme aimed to “run a series school children of special Arts Taster Days for schools, to allow • Development of the Bike Arts project, with teachers and pupils to take part in high quality Motiv8 and Paulsgrove Carnival creative workshops and hands-on activities”. • Supporting Aspex Gallery’s In the Frame Alongside this work, Jump Start delivered one to project and exhibition, through developing one consultations with teachers, arts residences and facilitating projects with Leesland in schools, specialist workshops and arts events, School and Motiv8 workshops in schools, and professional development training days for teachers and Development artists. Children and Young People: Jump Start was also able to add further value to its programme, through: • Participating in Jump Start projects gave the children and young people involved • Collaboration with Fluid Motion Theatre’s the opportunity to engage in new arts Streetspeare project experiences in various ways: through one- • Participation in the Portsmouth Music off workshops, in-school artist residencies, Hub’s Hands Free event, engaging 500

Michael Rosen and Neal Layton the primary schools workshop at Portsmouth Library Arts Days, collaborative work between The most common words in secondary and junior feeder schools, off- site events, and participatory events with feedback from pupils in relation to high profile artists. As a result of this, they their experience with Arts Award were able to improve existing, or develop were ‘confidence’, ‘teamwork’ and new skills: “This project has significantly ‘skills’. benefited our students – it has boosted their confidence and developed their writing skills.” (Katie Hicks, King Richard School) • A very positive response was received from the children and young people completing their Arts Awards. It enabled cultural providers (including the likes of them to engage in the arts in greater depth Portsmouth Music Hub and Kings and over a longer period of time. The most Theatre). common words in feedback from pupils in relation to their experience with Arts Artists and Workshop Leaders: Award were ‘confidence’, ‘teamwork’ and • Arts practitioners were given the ‘skills’. opportunity to work in other contexts – • Working with professional artists and including the Arts Expo – and were able to makers also engendered a real sense of network with other artists and ownership and authenticity amongst the organisations. students: “I’ve learnt a new chord on my • Two training sessions were planned for guitar so I can show that to my guitar artists and workshop leaders – one in teacher.” (Lawrence, 9, Bournemouth safeguarding children and young people, Symphony Orchestra Day at Portsmouth and another based on Arts Council Guildhall) ’s Seven Quality Principles. Arts Cultural Providers and Venues: Award training was also given as a direct response to requests and issues that • Regular meetings and informal contact arose during the project. throughout the programme enabled • Supportive feedback was shared with the proactive engagement between partners. arts practitioners after observations of It also enabled the success of shared their workshops, in line with the Quality events, including the Arts Taster Day Principles. They were also given the (Jump Start’s launch), and the Arts Expo, opportunity to discuss future practice. both at Portsmouth Guildhall. • Longer residencies in schools enabled • Partners were able to develop their own arts practitioners to develop and build on bank of artists through sharing contacts, relationships with the teachers and support and learn from each other, and children and young people, resulting in facilitate networking opportunities for other further return work in the future.

The professional development Establishing Long-term, Sustainable workshop was fantastic! It’s been Partnerships

so great to meet like-minded people • Close working relationships with the promoting art in the curriculum. consortium described above allowed for very positive development between the three partners. They were able to draw on and develop each other’s knowledge.

Teacher at RSC professional development training day

• The offer of a wide range of arts events I definitely see there being a future, that partnered schools with local and regional arts practitioners hugely benefited but funding is the tricky thing – those involved. A ‘one-stop shop’ was partnerships are really key at the created, to provide access to and delivery moment, that’s what we’ve found of arts activities and events, including across the board. professional development for teachers and practitioners, as well as the coordination of Arts Award delivery. • Sustainable links were established between the consortium partners, cultural Vicky Chapter, Aspex Gallery providers, schools, and arts practitioners as a result of Jump Start – through targets can leave little time to commit to mutually supportive and successful extracurricular projects. Those involved were able relationships that were built from the to develop their practice as part of the Jump Start ground up. programme, through examining previous events • All partners were keen for Jump Start to that had worked well, developing relationships continue, but recognised that would only and sharing contacts, and working with new, be possible with established funding in recommended artists and skilled practitioners. In place. working together as a consortium, the partners were able to share knowledge and develop their Enabling partners to develop their range of outreach and engagement. work and expand into new practices Facing challenges head on and outreach The most notable expansion was building All three partners wanted to expand their contacts Discover, Explore, Bronze and Silver Arts Award with secondary schools. Previous experience had into the delivery of projects – a task that was not shown them that they were the hardest target easy – “it is a funding issue and an organisational group to get to commit to projects – pressures at issue” (Liz Weston, New Theatre Royal). Arts schools for both teachers and pupils in reaching Award can be difficult to get into schools because

Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra’s schools workshops day at Portsmouth Guildhall Training is really important for for the children and young people taking part. artists and arts practitioners, as it means they have to look at what Empowering young people through they’re doing in a particular way, involvement in projects

designed by some external Through working with professional artists and measure. workshop leaders, the children and young people taking part in the programme were supported and encouraged to explore, develop and express their own arts output. Projects were also established to enable them to become cultural leaders, collaborators and curators: Liz Weston, New Theatre Royal • Crofton School worked to devise a theatre of the demands on their time: performance. They then performed this to “It has become clearer and clearer that in order other schools. for it to work within school settings, we need to • Cowplain Community School also created build it into a project and structure it in a way that performances to take into feeder schools will mean the arts are delivered in school time. • Mayfield School hosted a project involving Success is dependant on finding a way that fits five visiting secondary schools – they led with each individual school, and channelling all of them to create a digital installation to that through Jump Start made it a lot easier. feature as part of Portsmouth Festivities in Meticulous planning is essential to the success of June. these kinds of projects.” • Leesland School and Bay House pupils collaborated on the creation of a multi- (New Theatre Royal) purpose cloth to double as sea/sky and Enhancing the skills of those Prospero’s cloak, for a public performance delivering arts and culture to of The Tempest, as part of Fluid Motion children and young people Theatre’s Streetspeare project. • King Richard School hosted an Arts Taster Using Arts Council England’s 7 Quality Principles Day for transition students from feeder as an observation framework reinforced for the schools, in which their pupils acted as artists that their practice was of high quality – it Ambassadors for the school. fed back examples of their practice to them where • Arts Award Bronze this was evident. It also allowed for the students led workshop sessions for other consortium to identify areas for development, students at the school as part of their enabling them to tailor their professional project, When the Guns Fall Silent. development training to more specific needs: • Bridgemary School also hosted an Arts • Artists were given the chance to develop Taster Day for transitions students. their own practice by collaborating with other artists they had not previously worked with. • Teacher training days were able to give I learned a new chord on my guitar, teachers the opportunity to work with and so I can show that to my guitar learn from professional practising artists. teacher. • Trained Arts Award advisers supported teachers and increased the confidence of those who had been recently Arts Award adviser trained themselves. Working in collaboration with teachers enabled school projects to combine their content with the Lawrence, 9, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra day at Portsmouth delivery of Arts Award, which added value Guildhall

ways in which they can continue to collaborate in the future, with one lead This project has significantly person to take overall responsibility – as benefited our students as it has was the model of delivery here. It was felt that the lines of communication boosted their confidence and • between partners and schools were developed their writing skills. sometimes blurred, so this should be more clear-cut in the future. • Often, contact with the schools proved difficult, particularly in the case of secondary schools – this was largely due Katie Hicks, King Richard School to time and workload constraints. It would be good to find ways to improve this

Impact of the project process, as maintaining contact with the correct person would better develop more • Thanks to the Jump Start programme, the effective working relationships. number of children and young people participating in Arts Award activities The Numbers increased by 614%. • 4 Arts Taster Days, engaging with 2070 The majority of children and young people • children and young people involved rated their experience of taking • 17 secondary schools actively involved part as either ‘excellent’ or ‘very good’. • 33 primary schools actively involved • Most of the children and young people • 21 one to one consultations with schools involved said they would like the and youth organisations opportunity to do a higher level of Arts 182 workshop sessions held Award. • • 341 Discover Arts Awards How might this project influence • 14 Explore Arts Awards future work? • 103 Bronze Arts Awards • 7 Silver Arts Awards • The consortium are working to identify • 2 training sessions for artists Jump Start was a huge success, not Further points and observations: only meeting its targets, but also • Only secondary schools are engaging in exceeding them in many cases. Not the arts beyond the requirements of the only did engagement increase, so National Curriculum. • Secondary school teachers are trained in too did the geographical reach of and teach their specialist subject, so are the programme itself. more likely to facilitate arts experiences in general. • The organisation and success of these types of arts programmes is very much driven by individual teachers and not school policy. The concern therefore, is

that when a teacher who champions the • 2 training sessions for teachers arts leaves that school, the infrastructure • 4 online ‘how to’ videos produced is not there to enable the work to continue • 85% of participating cultural organisations at the same level. became Arts Award Centres or Supporters • Pupils engaging in work in the arts and • 7 performances by children and young with professional artists benefits positively people from these experiences – experiences that • 10 schools achieved Artsmark are now threatened by funding cuts and • Total attendance (including taster days the current status of the arts in education. and performances): 4241 • Projects were most successful when the teachers involved had attended the first Final Thoughts Teachers Conference and had received The Jump Start programme was a huge success, one to one consultations. not only meeting its targets but also exceeding them in many cases. Not only did children and young people’s engagement increase, so too did the geographical reach of the programme itself. The partnerships formed through this The consortium has proven to be a very programme continue to remain strong; successful partnership – in advising, producing, partners are now working together as part of and delivering a wide range of arts projects. As a Local Cultural Education Partnerships, which result, Jump Start has been able to establish itself link to Arts Council England’s Cultural as a recognisable brand delivering a very high Education Challenge. standard of work. You can find out more about the work at: Multi-tiered projects involving school partnerships http://bit.ly/2dGUuTD also proved very successful, and this, we feel, signposts a possible way for moving forward with future projects. Schools are particularly keen to develop future work with transition students from feeder schools.

Credits Taken from: Project Evaluation by Donna Bish Edited by: Laura Lamb Artswork [email protected] www.artswork.org.uk