How many schools would love to hear teachers, pupils and parents say the following? "During the project attendance figures for the YR4 and Yr5 classes have improved significantly", "It made me want to come to school more...", "I would like to see more children given this opportunity".
Ivanhoe Primary School and Town Field Primary School worked with darts on 'Making a Splash', a project that ran over 3 months and was funded through the NRF (Neighbourhood Renewal Fund). The project was born out of the excellent work darts had delivered with economically inactive adults through Making Waves, a project commissioned by the DMBC Social Team. Making a Splash was about early intervention and focused on re-engaging and further engaging children and young people in school life through creative activity.
Each week there were 2 sessions of delivery within each school during curriculum time, focusing mainly on drama, music, photography and visual arts. Over the half term there were over 5 days of arts activity across the schools which pupils, their siblings and significant adults attended. Participants got to experience puppet making, song writing, sculpting, painting and improvisation skills, to name just a few. After the half term launch of 'family learning', each school ran a weekly after-school club to continue this theme for children and young people and their parents or carers. These clubs were successful in bringing parents into the school to work with their children, and due to the high attendance (an average of 8 adults a session over 4 weeks) one of the schools continued to run creative arts activities on these nights into the next term.
Each school worked towards a final performance with the rest of the school and the parents. Both performances produced in the children and young people a high level of focus, commitment, confidence and pride. This pride was also shared by many of the family members that turned up to watch, cheer, whistle and clap; over 79 adults and 36 children and young people (this figure does not include the entire population of each school that also watched the performance).