Engaging with the arts is as easy as ABC - Jubilee and Lauriston Schools of Creativity
Arts Beyond the Classroom (ABC)
Jubilee Primary and Lauriston Primary may be separate schools, but together they make Jubilee and Lauriston, School of Creativity extraordinaire.
Both based in Hackney, Jubilee and Lauriston have a joint total of 766 pupils.
Over the years, Jubilee and Lauriston had concluded that arts in London schools is strong and healthy. Not so easy, however, is to get this to filter this through to the wider communities. As a School of Creativity, responsible for the creative well-being not just of its own school but of the community too, Jubilee and Lauriston wants to solve this problem. How do we get the wider community to engage with their cultural entitlement independent of the school’s offer? And, key to answering this, what barriers stand in their way?
Jubilee and Lauriston devised three main aims:
- To genuinely create opportunities in order that our communities may effectively engage with the arts.
- To educate our families for the future, inspiring confidence and developing lifelong learning skills
- To spread the message of the importance of creative learning and cultural entitlement in other inner city schools
They set about designing and running workshops for parents and children, enabling them to develop confidence in accessing arts opportunities in the capital in a safe and controlled atmosphere.
These workshops explored five areas of cultural activity: Dance, Museums, Art Galleries, Music and Film. Each workshop and visit was followed by a suggested homework activity and a plenary session to see how the process worked. The whole method encouraged a different set of parents and carers to access both the school and the cultural activities that London has to offer. The project forged meaningful partnerships with cultural venues and partners such as Sir John Soane’s Museum, the BFI, Sadler’s Wells and the Tate Modern.
The project has made a lasting impression on all those involved. One parent enthused: "I might not know what happened on the other days, but I definitely knew what happened on the twelfth. We went to The National Theatre to watch Twelfth Night, a play that we have already acted at the drama workshop in the school."
Another parent spoke of their increase in confidence, not only in appraising the arts but also in themselves and their ability to discuss their feelings and needs: "I feel that I can really say what I think without looking a fool in front of my child".
To add another creative dimension to the already flourishing project, the whole journey was documented in a live blog, and filmed by the children and filmmaker Eelyn Lee. This film was made available to other schools above and beyond the partnership schools. Why not have a look at the blog here.
In the second year, in a focus shift towards leadership, parents were invited to come up with their own suggestions for the kinds of workshops they would like to take part in. Photography proved the most popular, so professional photographer Madeleine Waller was contracted to run a series of sessions. The new group of parents and children were taught how to use some reasonably good but inexpensive cameras, and were then let loose on their own community and London to test their skills. The resulting photographs were exhibited at Sutton House, Hackney’s oldest National Trust property, to great acclaim. Once again, the parents and children went on visits to Sadler’s Wells, The Victoria and Albert Museum to see the Quilting Exhibition (after which they made their own joint patchwork), The National Theatre and National Portrait Gallery. It was another rich diet for all concerned.
The final year of Arts Beyond focuses on children and parents at the very beginning of their school life. The nursery classes of both schools have opened their doors to the targeted parents to work alongside the artist Albert Potrony, creating environments for the children to respond to and the parents to observe. This is groundbreaking and exciting work and is being documented by those involved for wider use.
