Tuesday 25 October 2011

Arushi finds somewhereto_ curate

Arushi Patel, TMC's enterprise assistant work placement, unlocked Pedestrian Arts Gallery as a somewhereto_ curate.


The fine art graduate curated a young people's somewhereto_ exhibition called 'Our Voices'.


The collaborative exhibiton aims to raise questions around the notion of student voice. Young people from Leicester have produced the beautiful artwork which will spur on conversations about the positive and negative experiences with student voice.


Arushi, who will be staying with TMC until she jets off on her travels in February 2012, said, "After 3 years of not doing anything with a canvas, it was quite the learning curve putting up five canvas' in a day! I really enjoyed being back in the arts environment and the space looks good which is most important!"



The artwork is produced by Merdeka French, Dev Navekar, Shiv Navekar, Arjun Parmar, Dipesh Parmar, Vivek Patel, Kimberley Symmons.
Photography by Sophie Lewis.


Thursday 20 October 2011

TMC and Lincolnshire One leadership residential




Ten young people will join The Mighty Creatives on Sunday (October 23) for the first leadership residential in partnership with Lincolnshire One at Priory Academy LSST.


The 14 to 18 year-old young people will learn team building, leadership skills and festival programming and management and take part in practical digital art workshops.


There will also be the opportunity for the young people to enjoy the Frequency Festival with access all areas pass for the duration of the festival October 21-29.

Lincolnshire One identified a need for young people to become more involved in collaboration and key decision-making for the county arts sector and has obtained funding to offer this leadership and skills development programme in partnership with TMC.



Following the residential young people will be offered the opportunity to access a mentor from the arts and cultural industries who will be happy to offer advice, guidance and, possibly, access to volunteering or apprenticeships.



During the residential participants and TMC will be tweeting about they are getting up too and photos and films will be uploaded to the Be Mighty Be Creative blog after the event.

Prime Minister applauds somewhereto_

Prime Minister, David Cameron, hopes to inspire more businesses to open spaces for young people after unlocking No.10 for young people to free run, perform and practice boxing.


Inspired by the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, somewhereto_ is a nationwide project to help young people find the space they need to do the things they love, within sport, culture and the arts.


 
 
You'll find out more about this story on the TMC website.

Monday 17 October 2011

Ignition* Celebrations and Lab 13 launch


Last month, we helped celebrate and showcase the work by pupils involved in Ignition*.  This is a four year programme of creative approaches to the learning and teaching of STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering and maths), involving teachers, students, parents, artists, scientists, inventors, designers, engineers, film-makers, writers and journalists. Ignition* is being delivered by Ignite! in collaboration with The Mighty Creatives, and funded by the East Midlands Development Agency (emda).September brought the final event under the Ignition* banner; a celebration event, to bring together all the strands, the people we’ve worked with and the fantastic STEM work that has been achieved over the last four years.



The event lasted three days, and involved over 400 people. On Sunday 11th September, we brought all the Creative Sparks back together, including the original Ignite! Creative Sparks, for a reunion, and future planning day. Joined by Sian Prime and Kate Andrews, along with the Creative Sparks mentors, all the Sparks shared their recent creative STEM based work, and this was followed by sessions on utilising social media by Kate Andrews, and developing a business model, by Sian Prime. It was a fantastic day, and reinforced to all who attended the importance of the Creative Sparks community, and how it must be maintained and used to its full advantage to continue the creativity and innovation that comes from this inspiring group of young people.




Monday was a day to celebrate the involvement of the regions schools, who have participated in Come Alive with Science, Invent and Sci Art Fusions. 12 schools brought along presentations to show what impact Ignition* has made to their STEM learning. These presentations included films, displays and PowerPoint’s, and all showed a huge variety of fantastic STEM learning, and involvement of lots of pupils. Pupils who attended were also invited to take part in a number of drop in workshops, which included building an Alien Robot, and contributing to a Wall of Mouths! It was a fantastic celebration of the hard work and efforts the schools who have worked with Ignition*, and a fun day for all involved!





For the final day of the Celebration Event, we hosted an East Midlands STEM Partnership Forum Event. With keynote speeches from Simon Collins from Caterpillar, and Graham Legg from Harry Carlton School, the audience and panellists discussed STEM in education and business, and bridging the gap effectively. Following the Forum Event, Tuesday afternoon was taken up with our Lab 13 showcase event, where all our six Lab 13’s attended, with most bringing things to show or demonstrate. Our original Lab 13, Dovecote Primary school, kicked off the afternoon with a demonstration (and audience participation!) of a human ice cream machine, followed by a quiz on ice cream! Other Lab 13’s invited guests to come and see their displays, and explain about their own Lab, and what happens in it. Tuesday afternoon was a fantastically busy afternoon, with lots of children handing out their own business cards, leading in science experiments, and networking with each other!


The Celebration Event was a fantastic collection of some of the great achievements that have come from Ignition*, and it was a pleasure to celebrate with the schools and young people who have been involved, some from the very beginning.


Elizabeth Woodville School (EWS) – Lab 13 launch


Earlier this month saw the launch of a new Lab 13 at the Elizabeth Woodville School (formerly Kingsbrook College). The Lab 13 at EWS is the sixth Lab 13, and will be the final Lab 13 under the Ignition* programme. The launch day was fantastic, and we were joined by some local primary pupils, and other students from the school, who all took part in various STEM related activities; making bath bombs, analysing bacteria on fingertips, and creating an erupting volcano, to mention a few!

The Lab 13 is new for the school this year, and so the Management Team are just getting started with their responsibilities and development of the Lab. We are really excited to see how the Lab develops, and we’re very pleased to welcome EWS to the Lab 13 family!

Tuesday 4 October 2011

Learning clusters go mobile

We’re having some exciting new conversations with clusters of schools about TMC’s learning service. We all know that we’re going through a time of change in education, and we’re happy to say that we’re able to continue working proactively by innovating in the classroom.

In Derbyshire, Leicester, Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire, Northamptonshire and Rutland, schools are thinking about how to continue with creative and child-centred approaches to improve learning. They’re focusing on a variety of school improvement areas, including literacy, parental engagement, CPD and curriculum development.

This year, participating schools will get a visit or two from Mobile TBC! This engaging space helps us to reimagine the possibilities for young people’s learning.



Looking ahead, we are also thinking about how we can support specific aspects of teaching and learning. MFL is top of the list at present…




Our approach will continue to focus on pedagogy and direct intervention, ensuring that young people and staff have unforgettable learning experiences that improve outcomes for them.

Watch this space for more info! If you’d like to chat about getting involved please call Sarah Bailey on 07887 594105 or email sarahb@themightycreatives.com.

Meanwhile, if you’d like a little inspiration today, have a look at some of our case studies. Here’s what happened when we thought differently about understanding World War I. http://www.themightycreatives.com/our-programmes/case-studies/caistor-yarborough/