Curious Minds

A Very Curious Celebration

On the 5 and 6 July we held two very special celebrations for the end of the Creative Partnerships’ programme at the brand new, state-of-the-art LICA centre Lancaster University and the Eden Building on the campus of Liverpool Hope University.

A group of over 300 delegates made up of schools, students, teachers and creative learning practitioners from right across the North West were treated to a very different kind of conference with party games, a traditional ice cream van and actors playing funfair barkers and 'Curious Explorers' guiding them from presentations to fun activities.  The venues were decorated with giant bunches of helium balloons, live Twitter feeds showing peoples 'Curious Stories' and enormous picture boards with quotes from celebrities such as actress Dame Judi Dench and chef Heston Blumenthal, saying what or who inspired them to be creative as a child. (more on Curious Stories here).

Students from four schools across the North West documented the day in tweets, blogs, images, film and online. The complete resource of this will be released in the near future but you can see how the Merseyside event was captured here: http://www.capzles.com/C3DEFD64-DF04-4200-8974-05284B8897AB

A panel of experts from the arts, education and political sectors: children's novelist and screenwriter Frank Cottrell-Boyce, Paul Oginsky, Youth Policy advisor to David Cameron, Angela Aspinwall-Livesey headteacher of both St. Johns Catholic primary school and Hillside Community primary school - Skelmersdale, Phil Duffy- headteacher of Wallasey School, Emma Wee, CEO of arts in education charity The Creative Arts Schools Trust (CAST), educational experts Helen Manchester and Anna Ledgard, Roger Hill -broadcaster and international arts consultant and Curious Minds acting chief executive Chris Finn took part in a 'Question Time' style debate with the delegates on the future of creative teaching in Lancashire schools to conclude the event. The panel was moderated by Robert Meadows - a future David Dimbleby perhaps?

Delegates were invited to attend workshops to have, well to have a bit of fun really. To really get stuck into some wonderful creative activities. Images from these sessions you can find linked below.

For the past eight years across Merseyside, Lancashire and West Cheshire, Curious Minds has worked with over 400 schools within the 'Creative Partnership' programme which was set up by the Labour Government in 2002.  The programme and the main focus of our work are to bring creative freedom and opportunity to children and young people and schools. Bringing education techniques, learning and curriculum to all involved. Over the last eight years we have helped schools to improve Ofsted grading, improved results and attainment in schools right across the North West and have improved life for schools, students, parents and communities providing them with the skills to adapt and change, improve their prospects and generally made education a more exciting and interesting place to be for all involved and affected by it.

While Creative Partnerships’ has come to an end Curious Minds’ acting Chief Executive Chris Finn reminded delegates present that over the past eight years that they: “have been the mavericks, the people and schools brave enough to try new techniques, pushing forward one aim – the improvement of education attainment and the well-being of children and young people. You have been extraordinary”, he said asking all present to, “now please carry on being extraordinary as we all move into the future.” 

Images on this page were taken by Brian Roberts, the rest of the events images can be found here:

Lancashire: http://t.co/PDUWu6A

Merseyside: http://t.co/CI2PAIt

Tristan Brady Jacobs Lancaster workshop can be seen here: http://tinyurl.com/tbjlica

Cath Ford’s Creative Documentation workshop you can find here: http://cathintheattic.posterous.com/participants-at-a-curiouscelebration-celebrat

Thanks

Our Curious Celebrations were brought to you by Gemma and Karen from Little Atom Productions. We would like to give them a huge thank you for making our two celebrations very, very special...and very curious.

But we would also like to give thanks to the following people and organisations:

Dorothy – Ali Johnson (The Creative team behind our Curious Stories book)

All of our Panellists’

All of the practitioners who ran our workshops (Naomi Whitman, Jez Dolan, Kate Gorst, Tristan Brady Jacobs, Emma Wee, Pete Moser and Cath Ford)

The leaders of our youth media hubs: Jez Dolan and Paul Main

All the young people from schools across the North West who captured the day on blogs, in images and film: Accrington Academy, Walton Le Dale Arts College, King David High School and Upton Hall FCJ.

Barefoot Wine

Kate at Sunset Ices

Lancaster University and Hope University