See, touch, listen, experience: how arts organisations supported by

Arts Council England are opening the eyes and ears of youngsters

to the cultural riches of the North

Our mission at the Arts Council is 'Great art and culture for everyone'. We have five

goals to help us achieve this. The aim of Goal 5 is to ensure that ‘every child and

young person has the opportunity to experience the richness of the arts.’ To this end

between 2012 and 2015 Arts Council England, North is investing £183 million in arts

organisations, museums and libraries that focus on creating high-quality arts and

cultural learning experiences for, by and with young people of all ages - from early

years to those in their early twenties.

Making sweet music

Several organisations are making a difference to children’s lives by giving them

access to first class live music experiences.

Three of the country’s six In Harmony programmes are based in the North. In

Harmony is a national music education and social programme, based on the

Venezuelan El Sistema principles, which aims to inspire and transform the lives of

children and their families in disadvantaged communities through the power of high

quality, intensive and immersive orchestral music-making. There is already positive

evidence that each of the three schemes in the North is making a difference in the

community it serves.

In Harmony Liverpool, run by Royal Liverpool Philharmonic and local partners, is

now in its fifth year. The feedback on its impact in those years is very positive: the

percentage of children at Faith Primary School making ‘good progress’ (as per

national curriculum levels) in reading increased from 38 per cent in 2009 to 68 per

cent in 2013, and in maths from 35 per cent in 2009 to 66 per cent in 2013). The

scheme has had a significant impact on children’s musical achievement, wellbeing,

personal, social and emotional development, family relationships, school culture and

the community of West Everton as a whole.

In Harmony - Credit: Simon Dewhurst

In Harmony Opera North has been working with the children and community of

Windmill Primary School in Belle Isle, South Leeds, since February 2013. It is unique

among the six national schemes for its emphasis on singing, which is given equal

status to instrumental work. Since the scheme was introduced average parent

attendance to a school event has increased from seven per cent to 35 per cent of all

parents – the highest attendance in the school’s history. A highlight within the first

few months, for children and parents alike, took place at Leeds Town Hall, where

more than 350 young musicians performed in their first concert alongside the

Orchestra and Chorus of Opera North. At the Music Teacher Awards 2014 In

Harmony Opera North won the award for Best Classical Music Education Initiative.

Through In Harmony Newcastle Gateshead Northern Sinfonia, the orchestra of Sage

Gateshead, is working with Hawthorn primary school and adjoining Ashfield nursery,

based in the Westgate ward of Newcastle to deliver a programme for 292 pupils. In

Ofsted’s view, In Harmony contributes to the change in the school’s Ofsted rating

from Satisfactory to Good, with an Outstanding in Behaviour.

Between August 2012 and March 2015 the Arts Council is investing more than £171

million of funding on behalf of the Department for Education in a network of music

education hubs across England, to ensure that every child aged five-18 has the

opportunity to sing and learn a musical instrument, and to perform as part of an

ensemble or choir.

Thirty four of the 123 hubs are in the North area. Among these, the Greater

Manchester Music Hub is the largest – a partnership of nine Music Services: Bolton,

Bury, Oldham, Rochdale, Salford, Stockport, Tameside, Trafford and Wigan. Its

partner organisations include The Hallé, BBC Philharmonic, Brighter Sound,

Chetham’s School of Music, Charanga, Greater Manchester Arts Officers Network,

Manchester Camerata, Manchester Metropolitan University, Music Unlimited, Royal

Northern College of Music, University of Salford, Sing for Pleasure, and The Voices

Foundation.

As well as providing regular access to music tuition and wider music experiences for

the children within the Greater Manchester area, the hub has successfully developed

several regional ensembles for high-flying players in the two years of its existence.

The Youth Brass Band came first - the end result of a Brass Day held at the BBC

Philharmonic studios at Media City in October 2012 – closely followed by a Youth

String Band and Jazz Orchestra developed along the same lines.

Similarly, the Lancashire Music Hub , a partnership led by the well-established

Lancashire Music Service, offers a clear progression route for its most talented

young musicians. The 48 ensembles delivered by Lancashire Music Service –

including six county-wide ensembles and orchestras – provide progression routes in

a range of genres that lead to high level performances at national level, such as

Music for Youth and the Schools Proms. Through the service overall 325 schools

receive weekly whole class sessions and 3000 pupils engage with the Musical

Schools programme – more than any other hub in the country. The hub has 18

music centres including three new centres in Libraries and three evening centres for

Rock and Pop. Some recent success stories can be read here.

Orchestras with highly developed learning programmes in the Arts Council England,

North area include the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic and The Hallé. The Hallé’s

2014 Music for Youth concerts on a World War I theme, offered children a multi-

media experience. It involved big screen images– the result of a long-term

partnership between Hallé Education and Stockport College Film and TV Foundation

Degree - and scratch and sniff cards supplied by Principal Hallé sponsors P Z

Cussons, as well as the opportunity to hear the orchestra play music associated with

WWI and to sing along to a medley of war songs, specially arranged by Steve

Pickett, the Hallé’s Education Director. Children from two primary schools each from

Wigan and Bury also performed their own creative arts project based on one of the

concert pieces and devised in advance with Hallé musicians. Over 6,800 mainly

primary school children attended the concerts in 2014, 500 more than in the previous

year.

Theatre that stimulates, nurtures, challenges – and entertains

M6 Theatre Company

Among the National Portfolio Organisations we support in the North are several

theatre companies who bring heightened theatrical experiences to children and

young people of all ages. The long established M6 Theatre Company in 2014 is

touring two different shows for young children in 2014, both of which explore the

concept of Change. Grandpa’s Railway, written by Mary Cooper and directed by

Olwen May, for children aged five and upwards and their families, examines the

difficulties, emotional dilemmas – and resolutions – encountered when elderly

grandparents move house and downsize to be near their grand-daughter.

Someone’s Moving explores similar themes, but is aimed at younger children, aged

three plus and is created for schools and non-theatre audiences.

Theatre Hullabaloo, based in Darlington, puts consultation with its young audiences

at the heart of all the work it develops and the two pieces they are touring in 2014

are no exception. Luna is about Billy, a little boy, who is frightened of the dark, and

his adventures with Luna, the girl who lives in the moon, who is lonely too. It is the

result of detailed consultation during which nursery children in Darlington were asked

what they thought of the moon. The children also provided feedback during

development. Tiny Treasures by award-winning playwright Kevin Dyer, is the

outcome of a very different collaboration, with Young Carers Revolution (YCR) an

organisation which provides empowerment and influence to young carers and young

adult carers (aged eight-25) in York. Miranda Thain, Hullabaloo’s Creative Producer,

explains: ‘YCR had seen a play of ours about dementia a while ago, and thought

theatre might be a good way to put across the issues they face. So they

commissioned Tiny Treasures, helping us write and edit the script, devising its

marketing image, and briefing the designer. Every aspect of the piece is young

person driven.’

As well as delivering such productions as these, Theatre Hullabaloo also leads a

consortium of seven venues in the North East in their programming of theatre for

young audiences. This is a three year project funded by Arts Council England

through strategic touring funding to raise the quality and profile of theatre for children

and young people in the North East. Theatre Hullabaloo also works with the venues

to improve their facilities for families, the marketing of their family offer and help staff

teams better understand how to welcome children into their venues.

Burnley Youth Theatre offers a range of regular workshops for young people aged

from two-25 in dance and drama. Opportunities for the oldest age group (School

Years 10, 11 and ages 16-25) include a Rep Company which involves commitment

to a year long programme of work that culminates in taking a piece of theatre to the

Edinburgh Fringe Festival. This year, a group of 15-19 years olds are working on a

piece of original theatre to take to the Festival, having spent the first half of the year

exploring a number of theatre styles such as physical theatre and verbatim theatre.

2014 saw the opening of a new building for the theatre, with additional rehearsal

space: the Moira Preston building was made possible by Arts Council funding from

the National Lottery and was also supported by Lancashire County Council, Burnley

Borough Council and Burnley Housing Association Calico.

Museums and galleries that fascinate and educate

A number of the museums and galleries we support in the North give young people

hands-on experiences of local history and of the visual and literary arts. They also

widen the learning and creative opportunities for children through their close links

with schools and colleges, and by offering continuing professional development

schemes to teachers.

Seven Stories, the National portfolio organisation based in Newcastle, is the only

place in the UK dedicated to the art of children’s books. It houses the original

manuscripts and illustrations of over 100 writers and artists and welcomes over

70,000 visitors a year to its exhibitions, events and learning programmes, In 2014-

15 Seven Stories is running Moving Stories, an exhibition that focuses on film and

television adaptations inspired by children’s books.

Seven Stories - Credit: Damien Wootton

The Hepworth Wakefield gallery runs a number of schemes for children and young

people. But it also reaches out to them via a comprehensive Continuing Professional

Development programme for teachers. One important strand is the Creative

Learning Network which has been running for over two years and is led by The

Hepworth, CAPE UK and Wakefield Theatre Royal. Aimed at artists, primary and

secondary school teachers, it offers five artist-led sessions, each focused on a

specific issue relevant to creative ways of teaching and learning, plus a sixth

reflective session. Natalie Walton, the Hepworth’s Head of Learning, explains its

value: ‘We set it up in response to teachers’ needs for help, inspiration and support

in the delivery of a creative curriculum - not these days found elsewhere because of

the education cuts. By bringing artists - from all disciplines - into the conversation we

give teachers the opportunity to think outside the box, and discuss and debate with

people who have the same issues but look at them from a different perspective.’

Schools pay £150 for their staff to attend the course, and it is definitely meeting a

demand: the numbers attending have doubled in two years.

The Hepworth Wakefield

mima, the Middlesborough Institute of Modern Art, is developing a strategy to embed

young people at the core of its work. Crucial to this approach was the setting up of a

unique Creative Apprenticeship, with the aim of combining a long-term training

opportunity with a clear focus on young people’s programming and involvement in

decision making. Alice Hornby and Helen Wickens were the two apprentices and

their year in that role led to important personal developments: Alice was offered a

place at the University of Leeds to study History of Art (though she still works closely

with mima) and Helen is now mima’s Young People’s Co-ordinator. They also

achieved great things for mima including their close involvement in the setting up of

mima young friends, a free membership adventure for young people aged 14-24.

Their other successes included curating According to Us, an exhibition with a twist,

completed from start to finish in partnership with mima’s resident group of young

people, the ‘mima dreamers’. The fact that Alice and Helen were invited to an Arts

Rooms event at Downing Street to talk about their experiences reflects how

importantly this youth-led practice instigated by mima is viewed by the wider arts

world.

The Arts Council runs a Museums and Schools programme, funded until 2015 by the

Department for Education to the tune of £3.6 million. The programme partners

regional museums with national museums and is enabling 10 regional museums and

schools partnerships to work at increasing the number and quality of visits by school

children. Three of those 10 consortia are in the North West.

The Pennine Lancashire Museums Consortium (PLM) is supported by Sir John

Soane's Museum and the V&A Museum in London, and is working collaboratively

across eight museums. These include Blackburn Museum and Art Gallery. Stephen

Irwin, Education Officer, Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council, explains their

approach, ‘Our first objective has been to recruit teachers, show them around the

venues and then get them to devise new sessions, using the building and their

collections to inspire their pupils.’

These new sessions include Sounds of the Mill at Queen Street Textile Museum and

Minibeasts at Blackburn Museum and Art Gallery, in which children use the

Museum’s fascinating Victorian beetle collection to explore the different reasons why

this familiar form of ‘minibeast’ is the commonest and most diverse group of animals

on the planet. Full details of these and other projects can be found in the Pennine

Lancashire Museums and Schools Programme newsletter.

Across in Tees Valley, Redcar Museums with Middlesborough, Hartlepool, Stockton

and Darlington Museums are supported by the National Portrait Gallery (NPG) for

their contribution to the national Museums and Schools Programme. The scheme is

called Making a Mark and uses a series of exhibitions to provide opportunities for

children to develop a sense of belonging and local pride as they explore how the

Tees Valley made its mark on Britain. Each exhibition includes at least one loan from

the NPG. For example, at the Captain Cook Birthplace Museum, Middlesbrough,

students investigate Middlesbrough’s famous explorer through the portrait of Cook’s

cabin boy, while at the same time considering how they might make their mark on

the world. By the end of the second year of a three year programme the Making

Mark partnership had worked with over 200 schools and 6345 children.

Bridge that gap: Arts Awards and more

The Museums and Schools programme also receives input from Bridge

organisations, the organisations we fund to act as facilitators, bridging the gap

between arts bodies and schools to provide an environment in which cultural

education can flourish both in and out of school. For example, Curious Minds, the

Burnley-based Bridge organisation, is working with the Pennine Lancashire

Museums consortium to increase the number of children gaining the Arts Award;

while Making a Mark are working in partnership with The Sage, the North East’s

Bridge organisation to develop custom-made Arts Award Discover log-books for use

both locally and eventually at museums and venues across the area.

Acting as leading agencies for the Arts Award – the scheme managed by Trinity

College London in association with Arts Council England - is one of the key roles of

the Bridge organisations. However, the range of arts opportunities Bridge

organisations create – both for young people and for their teachers – is very wide.

For example, CapeUK , the Bridge organisation based in Yorkshire, runs the

Bradford Film Literacy programme, which uses interactive film and animation

workshops to encourage media literacy, while at the same time developing key

literacy skills.

The three organisations in the North who have made the highest number of Arts

Awards since 2010 are the Customs House in South Shields, York Theatre Royal

and The Lowry In Salford,

The Customs House embeds Arts Awards’ five levels into all its projects with children

and young people and has for the past three years, set itself - and achieved - the

ambitious target of ensuring 200 young people supported by the organisation

achieve an Arts Award each year. In partnership with The PLACE (Project for

Looked After Children’s Education) and South Tyneside Fostering Services The

Customs House has led the development of an Arts Award model of delivery for

Foster Carers which is being rolled out nationally, as part of Trinity College, Arts

Award’s ‘Reaching Out’ programme. During the pilot project 25 foster carers were

trained to be Arts Award advisers at Discover & Explore levels and they supported

33 children to achieve a Discover and / or Explore award. Customs House is now

working nationally with Trinity College to roll this model out nationally, training foster

carers from outside the area.

York Theatre Royal delivering Arts Award for the last five years. During this time the

scheme has been made available to at least 420 young people and to date a total of

143 awards have been made: eight Gold, 83 Bronze and Silver and 52 Explore. In

2013 the theatre was presented with the Arts Award Best Practice award by Cape

UK, the regional Bridge Organisation, and over 90 children and young people are

currently undertaking the scheme. Among these are four members of the youth

theatre casts who performed adapted versions of Macbeth,The Tempest and Julius

Caesar in the studio theatre in March 2014. The Youth Theatre is just one very

important strand within the extensive range of learning and participation activities for

young people offered by York Theatre Royal across all age ranges, from weekly

early years encounters to the Snickelway Theatre Company for young people aged

19 and over - intended as a stepping stone between Youth Theatre and the

professional theatre industry.

York Theatre Royal Schools Festival

Recent Arts Award projects at The Lowry have included The War Horse Arts Award

Explore log book - a resource developed in partnership with Tameside Council

cultural services, with support from Curious Minds (Arts Council England’s Bridge

organisation for the North West), Trinity Arts Award and the National Theatre. The

resource will allow young people across the United Kingdom, who see the production

on its national tour, to bring their experiences to life in documentation and achieve an

Arts Award Explore qualification. This is an example of the way in which Arts Award

can facilitate partnership working across cultural organisations to deliver a joined up

creative offer for children and young people whilst also supporting them to access

internationally acclaimed artistic work.

The Lowry - War Horse

The full range of current activity delivered by The Lowry’s Community and Education

Team can be found here. One important strand has involved working with young

carers. In 2013 the team developed a film in partnership with Salford Young Carers

called We're Not Different, We Just Do Different Things starring the young people

alongside Maxine Peake. The film was a great success as the young people

presented it at The House of Lords and in many school, youth and education settings

across Salford to raise awareness of issues faced by Young Carers in School. 2013

saw the development of another short film, this time a documentary: Invisible or

Ignored is the result of many discussions with young carers in Salford about how

they feel they are invisible or ignored by health professionals who provide healthcare

for the people they care for. A copy of the film is to be sent not only to every young

carer in the city but also to every GP's surgery as well. It will also be used to train

Student Nurses at The University of Salford.

Grants for the Arts fuels vibrant festivals

Grants for the Arts, our open application funding programme, supports a wide variety

of arts-related activities, from dance to visual arts, literature to theatre, music to

combined arts. Here in the North two important festivals particularly aimed at young

people receive support in this way.

Juice Festival, held for 10 days every year across Newcastle Gateshead, presents

inspiring events created by, for and with children and young people. Crucial to its

success is its engagement with many partners, such as New Writing North, Bridge

North East and TakeOff Festival, Northern Stage, Sage Gateshead, Laing Art

Gallery and BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art.

2013 saw two important new partnerships. Juice became a commissioning partner

with the Manchester International Festival (MIF) for ZigZag ZigZag, a brand-new

piece of children’s storytelling devised and directed by Belgian director Inne Gorris.

This premiered as part of MIF in July and then had its regional premiere in Hilton

Primary Academy School, Newcastle in October.

Hilton Primary was one of five local schools with whom Juice started a two-year

partnership in July, bringing elements of the festival programme into school settings.

For example, Year 5 at Walkergate Primary School were involved in immersive

drama workshops on Dr Mullins and the Case of the Elephant in the Dock with

November Club, the award winning performing arts company, at Theatre Royal,

Newcastle, creatively exploring content for a reworked family version of the show.

Children who took part in this project were so enthused about their experience that

Walkergate’s Head Teacher offered to buy tickets for the performances for the

children and their families. Many families followed this through – a very positive step

for Juice in engaging harder to reach families and children. The schools partnership

continues in 2014, when the festival runs from 24 October-2 November.

NCBF 2013 - Credit: David Charlton

The Northern Children’s Book Festival is the largest annual reading celebration for

young people in Europe. Over two weeks every year authors and illustrators meet

children in schools and libraries across the North East.

In 2013 more than 13,000 children took part in these events, which are organised

and run by all the public libraries between the Tees and the Tweed, with practical

support from Bridge North East. Book people whose presence enchanted children at

the 2013 festival included illustrator Korky Paul (whose 11 Winnie the Witch books

created with writer Valerie Thomas have sold a million copies) and poet and story

writer David Harmer, whose work appears in 130 books of children’s poetry and his

own short story collections.

Every year the festival culminates in a special Gala Day offering fun for all the family

including storytelling sessions. Twelve authors took part in the 2013 Gala, held at

Woodhorn Museum in Northumberland, for which all 1300 tickets sold out.

2014 sees the 31st Northern Children’s Book Festival running from 10-24 November.

The Gala Day finale takes place at Sunderland’s Museum and Winter Gardens and

neighbouring City Library and Arts Centre on 22 November.