Events, News & Stories

On 10 July Talent Accelerator brought together students from Cavendish and Willingdon schools in Eastbourne to give them the opportunity to showcase their performing talents on the Congress stage and explore their possibilities for future careers in the Creative Industries.

We kicked off the day with a Creative Careers workshop identifying the key skills needed in creative jobs, what jobs are available, identifying opportunities and using facts to dispel the myths that young people are told about in the instability of working as a creative. This was followed up by singing rehearsals lead by Natalie Roberts, Performing Arts Co-ordinator at Cavendish school, getting everyone ready for their rehearsals for the evening performance. In the afternoon everyone was able to meet three fabulous creative industries professionals all from East Sussex who explained their experiences and took questions. Elie Haffenden told us all about her work at DSM on Six the Musical, Rachelle Diedericks told us about her life as an actor who has worked on The Take That musical, The Band, Our Generation and The Crucible with the National Theatre and Thomas Hopkins who owns and operates TPH and Ginger Quiff Media about his career producing theatre in a wide variety of theatres both in the UK and US. In the evening we welcome friends and families to join us to watch a performance including two wonderful choral pieces which included all of the children and young people from both schools.

If your school/college would like to work on a creative careers event with Talent Accelerator in 2023/2023 please get in touch.

Since we launched the Talent Accelerator programme last autumn, we have engaged with students and young people as well as employees about the creative industries, careers, and opportunities in our region. We’ve given talks in assemblies, invited students to discuss creative careers onsite at cultural venues, and spoken with educators to raise the profile of the creative industries in the region. It was now time to find an identity that reflected that.

In the spirit of the programme, we’ve been working with an early career local designer Jem Lewis to help develop a look and feel for Talent Accelerator.  It was important that we found an identity for the programme which reflected the values and intention of the programme so we teamed up with young people from the region to help us shape how a logo for the programme may look.

We had working sessions with young people and students from St Richards School, Bexhill High, and East Sussex College Group Eastbourne to find out what Talent Accelerator meant to them and from there, the common themes and design ideas were worked up by Jem.  The brief was complex, with over 100 contributors and we are delighted with the result and the collaborative design process.  We are pleased to launch our Talent Accelerator logo with the supporting strapline: Supporting young people in East Sussex into creative careers.

Work experience is a great way to help young people get a better understanding of the world of work as well as developing self-confidence, emotional development and even boosting academic outcomes. Unfortunately, in recent years the number of placements available has declined with a research report by Speakers for Schools finding less than half of young people in England are receiving work experience today. In the Creative Industries in East Sussex this a particular problem with many being micro businesses who struggle to accommodate a young person for work experience.

Talent Accelerator has been busy looking at ways to address this and has delivered a range of placements for young people .

12-16th June and 3rd-7th July in collaboration with Haven Young Creatives working with young people from Peacehaven Community School, East Sussex College, Seahaven School and Seaford Head Sixth Form we formed two film production companies. Each company devised, wrote dialogue, created soundtracks, performed and filmed a short film. The whole experience took place at the East Sussex College new Newhaven campus building which is opening in September. We are looking forward to the premiere event planned for September where we will showcase these wonderful films centred around the theme Open Doors and Closing Doors.

5th-9th June students from Saxon Mount School came to the De La Warr Pavilion to work with Talent Accelerator’s apprentice Mehrin Miah on exploring the experience of the building as a neuro diverse person. The students looked at areas of the building that they would change to make it more accessible and created some amazing designs/protypes for decoration and installations.

17th-31st May students from East Sussex College worked on developing a prototype for an online resource that maps all of the creative business/cultural organisations across East Sussex as well as identifying opportunities that they offer that could be useful work experience for students aged 19-19 looking to boost their CV.

If you are interested in looking at work experience differently, please get in touch as we start to plan for the academic year 2023/2024. Contact kim.byford@dlwp.com