Between January and September 2008, the De La Warr Pavilion developed and ran Working Our Way 2, a primary curriculum development project and major part of the Pavilion’s Inspire, Creative, Innovate programme working with young people, their schools, families and communities. WOW2 involved eight partnership projects bringing together artists, primary teachers and pupils.
The project drew on an enquiry framework to explore the research question, ‘How can the De La Warr Pavilion be a resource for creative education?’
We wanted to develop the Pavilion’s role as a resource for teaching and learning and as a catalyst for creative education.
We wanted to develop equal partnerships between teachers, creative practitioners and the Pavilion, to investigate ways in which the Pavilion can support cross curricular learning in schools.
Our project partners and funders were the Bexhill Consortium, Creative Partnerships Hastings & East Sussex and the Paul Hamlyn Foundation.
WOW2 represented a unique collaboration between the De La Warr Pavilion, the Bexhill Consortium (which brings together all the schools in the town plus other key local partners), the schools themselves and Creative Partnerships, Hastings & East Sussex. It is a progression from an exhibition held at the Pavilion in May 2007 of primary school work and approaches called Working Our Way: Creative journeys in education, that showcased some of the exciting work happening in local schools. The Pavilion was keen to build on the experience of this exhibition though a joint exploration of creativity and learning that would cement a strong and mutually beneficial relationship between the Pavilion and local schools.
We were also keen to capture the processes that underlie this kind of gallery education work in way that would be practical and useful for others to use, rather than just being a collection of case studies.
So WOW2 developed out of discussions with the Bexhill Consortium and Creative Partnerships at a strategic level, beginning in July 2007 following the WOW1 exhibition.
For the Pavilion, this also formed a key part of Inspire, Create, Innovate, a two year programme funded by the Paul Hamlyn Foundation. This programme represented a second phase of development in our work with young people, building on what we have learned since reopening in 2005 with the aim of embedding a more dynamic approach to participation, education and learning.
You can download the full WOW2 report here.
Acknowledgements:
Project Manager: Polly Gifford, Head of Education, DLWP
Project Coordinator: Becky Smith
DLWP Education Coordinator: Natalie Trimby
Advisory Teacher: Helen Hunt
Ed Boxall, illustrator, printmaker and author
Alex Brattell, photographer
Kevin Graal, storyteller
Rosemary Harris, writer and dramatist
All Saints School - Ruth Atkinson, Year 3
Chantry School - Corrine McManus, Year 6
King Offa School - Christine McCartan, Year 5
Little Common School - Sophie Keyte & Lex Beckett, Year 5
Pebsham School - Sandra Hayes, Year 5 and trainee teacher, Hazel McLean
Sidley School – Rosemary Haines, Year 1
St Peter and St Paul’s School - Sasha Godfrey and Michelle Kendle, Year 1
St Mary Magdelene’s School - Claire Mulhern, Year 2