News – Southampton Cultural Education Partnership

Banister Primary School’s Journey with Dance

Pupils at Banister Primary School have been using movement and dance to look at geography and science from a new perspective.

Natalie Watson and Year 4 students at Banister Primary School exploring geography and science using dance and movement.
SCEP *Cultural Curriculum*, part *of Better Lives Through Culture*. Photographs: Nosa Malcolm

Movement and dance specialist Natalie Watson has been working with the school to devise new ways of teaching geography and science as part of the Southampton Cultural Education Partnership (SCEP) Cultural Curriculum project.

After a term working with the Year 4 classes (together with teachers Miss Golden and Mr Darling) to devise a new scheme of work for geography, the project has been rolled out across different key stages and Natalie has now worked with the Early Years Foundation Stage, Year 2 and Year 5 on their science curriculum.

During an inset day in April, Natalie also ran whole school CPD workshop with the full teaching staff to discover ways to bring dance and movement into their daily lesson planning.

The Cultural Curriculum project is taking place in four different school settings across Southampton with Arts2Educate, SoCo Music Project, ArtfulScribe, as well as dance practitioner Natalie.

Are you a school setting looking to develop Cultural Capital and creative learning in the classroom? Get in touch with scep@soton.ac.uk to explore how we can support your ambitions.

SCEP supported by

Better Lives Through Culture, in partnership with Artswork

Watching the magic happen

Creative Mentor Amy Spencer describes exploring creative ideas in the ‘safe place’ of the art department with her mentee.

Amy Spencer, visual artist, SCEP Creative Mentor

Hello, my name is Amy and I am a visual artist and mentor for SCEP. Since starting my training for the Creative Mentoring Programme back in November last year, I have been trying to imagine how it might play out in real life.

Exploring History through a Cultural Lens

Creative Arts combine with History at Woodlands Community College as Year 7 students bring creativity into their learning about the Mongol Empire this term.

Abi Thommes from Arts2Educate has spent the past term working with students to find out how they would like to bring music, art and drama into their lessons. This is one of four arts/schools partnership to develop a Southampton Cultural Curriculum, as part of the SCEP’s Better Lives Through Culture Programme.

Working in partnership to achieve priorities for children and young people

Place-based partnership with cultural and child-focused organisations is key to achieving Southampton City Council’s priorities for children, Councillor Darren Paffey told SCEP (Southampton Cultural Education Partnership) members at a recent meeting.

Cllr Darren Paffey and Child Friendly Southampton logo

With partnership working at our heart, the SCEP was delighted to welcome Southampton’s Cabinet Member for Children and Learning and ward councillor for Bargate as a guest speaker at our last Members meeting:

‘There’s a lot of belief out there that councils are the sole organisation that can solve all problems in cities. It won’t be a surprise to know that’s not true. Everything that we do depends on the partnerships that we have built up with cultural organisations, with businesses, with our schools, with our early years settings and with the universities,’ said Cllr Darren Paffey.

The pleasure of offering support

Issa Loyaan Farrah-Kelly shares his first experiences as a Creative Mentor and how he is working with his mentee, a fellow poet.

Issa Loyaan Farrah-Kelly, poet, SCEP Creative Mentor

I applied to be a Creative Mentor with a sense of quiet trust, and enthusiasm…that I would be accepted, and was quietly overjoyed to be brought on board.

I found the training to essentially be a series of digestible, yet explicitly thorough, masterclasses in various elements of good practice of Creative Mentorship…delivered in a somewhat informal, yet explicitly professional manner. In a nutshell, I call my experience of the Creative Mentorship training practical philosophy.

I think there was a mutual/collective sense of excitement shared between myself and my Creative Mentor peers in training, all of us artists in various disciplines. My discipline is poetry.

This sense of excitement was, in my mind…practically, professionally and justifiably kindled by our mentors/coaches/trainers…Matt, Craig, Anna…and Jodie.

When I received word that I had been matched with a young poet, who wished to develop…it was as if abstract excitement, enthusiasm at being invited to share…insofar as I can….so much as I may understand about poetry etc…became solidified/crystallized…the Creative Mentorship role became real, and happily so.

Question Time,
by Issa Loyaan Farrah-Kelly — Question Time, a poem by Issa Loyaan Farrah-Kelly

My role is to support my mentee, which is an absolute pleasure…in developing poems over the course of 8 sessions, each session 1 hour long…held every fortnight after school.

My mentee wishes to write about their experiences of racism, which is unfortunately…a relevant, valid and important thing to be heard.

My mentee already has a sense of themselves as a poet, in a sense I consider myself jammy to have been matched with such a mentee.

Our sessions are basically conversational workshops, wherein we discuss poetry and work on pieces…under my mentee’s impetus, and I generally consider my role as being a sounding board/ideas person…making suggestions…never dictations.

I have a line of contact, via my mentee’s teacher, whereby I can ping ideas/developments etc, and receive them in turn.

I think it works quite nicely

Issa

The Southampton Cultural Education Partnership’s (SCEP) objective is to develop a cohort of Creative Mentors as local role models in Southampton, who will work directly with and inspire Children and Young People, including those from at risk, marginalised backgrounds or NEET (not in employment education or training).