2013

Sharing evaluation with our peers

Last year we had great pleasure in visiting the Shout project in Swadlincote during some of their creative days at People Express. We helped them with some evaluation and learned about their approach to providing activities for young people with additional needs and their families – and we made this short film for them at the end!

We’ve now used some of what we learned to guide the direction of the Film Cuts Club and start some sessions outside of school with family groups.

See the results here:

The Film Cuts Club celebrates

The Film Cuts Club celebrates its first year of support from Children in Need

It’s been a busy year for the Film Cuts Club. We have set up three weekly film making clubs at local high schools, with a staggered start of one starting each term. The first to start was in Glossopdale Community College, in April 2013, where they have now had three terms of activity. Next we began in New Mills in September and then the last club to start, Chapel en le Frith, began in January 2014.

Each club began with a pilot term, where we worked with school staff to try out the project with new groups. Sometimes we have gone back to the drawing board after the pilot and started with a new group – because in every place there is a different situation and the pilot is a time for us and the school to learn about the methods and the best direction for the work.

Each club has worked with film maker, Mark Turton, who has introduced a range of practical film making activities and through practical work has developed the club members understanding of the theory of film making; i.e. the different roles on set and the stages of pre-production, production and post-production. He has tailored the structure of sessions according to the different needs of each group, with some working in small groups to produce short pieces, some working in larger teams.

We have worked with a total of 59 young people with a range of additional educational needs and have seen some real changes in the confidence and social skills of the young people involved. For example, a young woman with speech and language impairments who now instructs her teachers on how to use equipment, and a young man with severe physical disabilities who takes a lead in story writing and supports others in coming up with ideas.

And here are some of the results:

So what’s next for the development of the clubs? After their pilot term of work in school time we are moving each club into an out of school slot – originally all of these were going to be after school club – but now we are planning a mixture of after school in Chapel en le Frith and New Mills and some holiday time activity in Glossop and Buxton. And these holiday sessions will invite the whole family, parents, siblings and friends of children with additional needs to take part in the filmmaking clubs. So watch this space for new partnerships and new opportunities to get involved.

Christmas 2013..

A huge thanks to everyone that took part in our Christmas making sessions in Buxton, New Mills and Glossop. Lots of lovely decorations were made and all the events had a really good Christmas feeling. Here is a selection of some of the work. Thanks to Glossop Library, New Mills Library, Buxton Library, Fairfield Surestart and Harper Hill Surestart for their support and to artists Katy McCall and Jim Medway for all their great ideas and hard work…..

Music POD 1 – working at Chapel en le Frith Key Stage 4 Support Centre

In our first module funded by Youth Music, we’ve been working at the Chapel PRU (Pupil Referral Unit) for 10 weeks since October, with MC Fox and music producer Diamond. The group have been writing lyrics and producing a track on Logic Pro and starting to work on their Arts Award files.

Here are some highlights of what they produced – performed on stage at Contact Theatre:

Click here for our analysis of the challenges of this programme

Funded by the Foundation for Youth Music

We currently have two programmes funded through the different modules of Youth Music funding.

In the Elevated Risk module we are running the Music POD 1 at Chapel PRU for one academic year, and through the Open Programme module we have Tall Tales starting in early 2014 and running until October 2015.

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Hear By Right Award!

Our award from the National Youth Agency! High Peak Community Arts has achieved a national award in recognition of our commitment to listen to and act on the views of young people and involve them in our decision making processes.

The National Youth Agency Hear by Right Award was launched in 2010 to provide organisations that put young people’s voices at the heart of service delivery and development with the opportunity to gain national recognition for their achievements.

The Award is evaluated at three levels – Bronze, Silver and Gold – and we have achieved recognition at Silver level, one of only four organisations across the country to hold this level.

Our chair of trustees, Dawn Bryan commented “We are delighted that our work with young has received national recognition. It is vital that we listen to and act upon their ideas, so that they are empowered in all walks of life.”

We’ve challenged ourselves to find roles for young people in all areas of the organisation, from working in the office on Work Experience placements, to evening meetings where they decide on the direction of projects, and even active fund raising to keep projects going. It’s important for a young person to be able to take part in whatever way works for them – whether it’s a one off experience at a community event, weekly participation on a project or even developing leadership skills and helping their peers.

Billy Lancaster, a member of our Shout Action team, said “It is interesting to see how decisions are made, and sometimes it’s good to get your views across on things that you think are working or not working. It’s good.”

Fiona Blacke, National Youth Agency chief executive, says: “Embedding youth participation into the development of services is not only best practice, but vital to ensuring provision is relevant to local needs.

“Many congratulations on achieving our Silver Hear by Right Award, which really demonstrates your commitment to young people’s active involvement within your organisation.”

Applications still being accepted for Music Leader

High Peak Community Arts have been awarded a two year grant from Youth Music Open Programme to deliver music making activities on target estates in the High Peak district. In each year we will complete a brand new musical adaptation of a well known children’s story, for performance around the district.

This programme is a development from collaborative projects under the Youth Arts Network High Peak, which in recent years have seen community drama performances in 2011; We Make Our World at the Pavilion Arts Centre, Buxton and in 2012; Darkness at Peak Cavern, Castleton.

This new work will work with one of the same groups, in Fairfield, Buxton and develop a new relationship with a group of young people in Gamesley, Glossop, who took part in pilot music activity in the summer of 2013.

Click on the link below to download the full brief for musicians and application instructions: deadline 15th November, 5pm.

Tall Tales Musician Brief

BUXTON DOMES with Bowerwirks.

Here are the domes from our day in the yurt at Buxton Library, August 20th 2013

The work created was absolutely lovely and well done to all the children, young people, mums, dads, grannies and grandads that came along, thanks also to the lovely Nicky from Bowerwirks and to the library staff all of whom made a good event great

The finished product has been exhibited in the Wirksworth Festival and should be arriving at Buxton Library soon, so keep an eye out for it.

Glossopdale Research Project

The project continues and we are still meeting and talking to people about their sense of community in Glossop, this summer we have been at Glossop Market, Glossop carnival and we were also invited to showcase the project at a research Council meeting in Edinburgh.

The showcase event really put into perspective the work we had done. There were loads of other projects showing their work at the event and there was even some time to talk to and visit some of the other stallholders showing their work. The project sat alongside some really good, forward thinking arts based research projects and it was great to see it there and have feedback from so many people. A round or two of Glossopoly was played and we now know for sure that we have created a bit of monster. Anyone locally who wants to use/display the game or the exhibition, just get in touch, we have some events planned in Glossop with the game as well, so keep an eye out in our diary section.

Click here to find out what Leicester University have this to say about the project.