Children embrace Creative Partnerships

I’m a spider, black as death
I’m a fly, out of the web
I’m a bat in a cavern
I’m a wolf, undercover
I’m the river running wild
I’m the wind over ground
I’m a tree in every wood
I’m the lizard to blend in with the tree
I’m a hole in the deepest earth
I am gravity, pushing you down
You win. I’m caught.

Chris, Paul, Martin and Belal from Tollesby School in Tees Valley

When poet Bob Beagrie joined other artists to collaborate with a group of boys at Tollesby special school in Middlesbrough, as part of the Creative Partnerships programme, he found himself faced with a pretty big challenge: how to get 15 year-old lads to write poetry.

Alongside a dramatist, a digital artist creating animation and a visual artist teaching sculpture, Beagrie commented, ‘You can imagine, not many of them were keen on the writing option!’

But the North England poet soon won them over, appealing to the boys’ competitive nature. He began by telling them the story of how Merlin got his powers, which had influenced an ancient bardic game from Wales.

The children then played the game themselves; one would begin by saying what animal they were, the other would decide an animal they would be to catch it, and write it down.

Beagrie proudly reads me one of the poems created by four of the boys, clearly impressed by the final product.

Tollesby School is one of four Middlesbrough schools contributing to a multi-media and cross-art performance to launch the Creative Partnerships programme in the Tees Valley tomorrow night.

The schools focused on local history and mythology to inspire the project. The works will illustrate the life of Skarunyete, a Native American who settled in Middlesbrough in 1889, now buried in the Linthorpe cemetery.

The projects form part of Creative Partnerships, a multi-million pound education initiative across 16 areas around the UK, involving between 15 and 25 schools in each region.

Of 361 schools participating in the UK-wide initiative, 100 are secondary, 200 are primary, as well as 19 special schools and one hospital school.

The Creative Partnerships scheme was awarded £40 million through the Arts Council of England as part of the Government’s Comprehensive Spending Review, to run a two-year pilot programme from April this year and until March 2004. However, further funds were announced by the Government earlier this year to roll-out the initiative beyond 2004.

The idea is to develop partnerships between students and a wide range of artists, including architects, dancers, writers, filmmakers, designers and actors, to create an enhanced learning experience and develop children’s creative skills.

Beagrie says he wanted the students to draw on their own experiences before attempting to write, adding that all too often students are expected to sit down and write a piece in one sitting.

‘That’s not the way any writer I know works, I wanted to demystify the processs,’ Beagrie explains.

At Linthorpe Junior school, Beagrie took students to Skarunyete’s grave, showed them photographs of the area from 1889 and told stories about Native North America, encouraging the children to take notes and interspersing the sessions with art activities before embarking on the writing process.

‘It brought the history to life, rather than just being academic and behind a glass case,’ Beagrie says, ‘they were allowed to step in and use their imaginations.’

Carol Alevroyianni, Creative Director of the Tees Valley partnership scheme, said Beagrie would often ‘have the kids in the palm of his hand,’ referring to a session where the poet told the mythical story ‘When Man Was Made Again’, interrupting the story at certain points so the kids could make clay sculptures like the characters in the tale.

The children also dramatised the story and took digital photographs which were later manipulated with other images.

‘I’m just looking at a photograph now, and it’s beautiful,’ Beagrie enthuses, ‘there’s blue sky, and two girls with their arms poised like wings. We’ve superimposed beaks on them and the kids loved it, they were hysterical when showed them recently!’

In the Barnsley, Doncaster and Rotherham region, Creative Director Becky Parry says the Creative Partnerships are just beginning.

Their launch event, a film combining documentary and animation, will screen on December 6 in a transformed steelworks warehouse, Magna, now a science education centre.

The theme for the initiative in Parry’s region is ‘Creating Change.’

According to Parry, a steering group initially decided on the theme of ‘Regeneration’, ‘but I felt really strongly about asking kids what they think and feel about change,’ she emphasises.

‘Often this area is described in terms of deprivation, high unemployment’, she continues, ‘I really hope we can move away from constantly being described in that way. We want to say, no, actually, we feel very optimistic and positive about what we can achieve,’ Parry says.

‘The model for the film came about because we wanted to give young people the opportunity to speak, to be heard and seen expressing their views, but also, lots of them were keen to use animation as well,’ Parry says.

According to Parry, although there are very few large creative organisations in the area, there is a vibrant community of creative technology businesses that have influenced the collaborations.

Like Beagrie, Creative Partnership Project Manager and Director Paul Slater, from Sea Film and Television, found schoolchildren eagerly embraced the opportunity to work with artists and in his case, learning animation.

‘The kids tend to be really excited and enthused at the prospect of making images move, because the majority watch plenty of TV and are quite knowledgeable about animation without realising it,’ Slater says.

‘They love it.’

The Middlesbrough Schools Creative Partnership launch will take place October 17 at the Hexagon Theatre, Hall Garth School. For further information contact Carol Alevroyianni at Tees Valley Creative Partnerships, 01642 264 683 or email carol.alevroyianni@creative.partnerships.com