Rachel Pattinson – Page 2 – Vital North Partnership

A North-East Heritage ABC

Exploring your local heritage is as easy as learning your ABC. In this blog post, find out about an alphabet schools project led by Newcastle University Library’s Outreach team, who collaborated with Historic England, Seven Stories: The National Centre for Children’s Books and the Hatton Gallery…

Inspired by hearing about the ‘A Manchester Alphabet’ project, where 8 primary schools in the North West created their own heritage alphabets, Newcastle University Library led a project with nine classes of Year 5 children, who researched, wrote and illustrated their own alphabet books exploring their local heritage.

Newcastle University’s Special Collections Education Outreach Officer Gillian Johnston led the project, which formed part of Historic England’s Heritage Schools programme, and 240 children from five local schools took part.

Newcastle University's Special Collections, including Old Aunt Elspa's ABC. Image: Newcastle University — Newcastle University’s Special Collections, including Old Aunt Elspa’s ABC. Image: Newcastle University

For Gillian, the starting point for the project was Old Aunt Elspa’s ABC, an alphabet book with woodblock printed letters and associated images by Joseph Crawhall II, held in the University’s Special Collections. The University Library also holds early hornbooks, and there are a number of alphabet books within the Booktrust collection.

Gillian got in touch with Paula Wride, Seven Stories’ Collections Officer, to find out about alphabet books in their Collection. Alongside the extensive Pat Garrett ‘ABC books’ collection, Seven Stories hold original archives for books including Judy Brook’s Mrs Noah’s ABC 123, Robert Crowther’s pop-up Most Amazing Hide and Seek Alphabet Book and Beverley Naidoo and Prodeepta Das’ S is for South Africa.

These collections were displayed during a CPD course which was attended by primary school teachers from Barley Mow Primary School, Bridgewater Primary School, Byker Primary School, St John’s Primary School, and Walkergate Community School.

Teachers exploring Seven Stories' alphabet books with Collections Officer Paula Wride. Image: Newcastle University — Teachers exploring Seven Stories’ alphabet books with Collections Officer Paula Wride. Image: Newcastle University

Over the course of the CPD day, the teachers explored the alphabet book collections, and went on a heritage walk around central Newcastle to find out about the history of the area. They explored different artistic techniques for illustrating their alphabets with the Hatton Gallery’s Education team and tried out creative and non-fiction writing styles.

Next, the teachers used this framework and additional support provided in school by the University Library to develop their project, and engaged each class with creating their own heritage alphabets.

Finally, the children’s artwork and writing was professionally collated by Michael Sharp from the University Library’s Special Collections team to make a series of beautiful alphabet books. These were printed by Print Services, Newcastle University and presented to the children in a special assembly in school – along with their Heritage Schools plaque from Historic England!

Children with their finished alphabet books.

For Gillian: “Working with local primary schools was great for Newcastle University Library. It gave us the chance to raise awareness of our Special Collections amongst local teachers and demonstrate how individual items from our collections can be used to inspire fun and creative educational projects.”

For Paula at Seven Stories: “Creating the digital resource for this project was a real bonus of this collaboration – this is a living resource that has a legacy on our website. We loved highlighting this project to the authors and illustrators whose collections were used.”

And Hazel from the Hatton Gallery agrees: “For the Hatton Gallery, it was a great opportunity to work in collaboration with Newcastle University Library, schools, Historic England and Seven Stories.”

Gillian Johnston introducing the alphabet books project at the teachers' CPD day. Image: Newcastle University — Gillian Johnston introducing the alphabet books project at the teachers’ CPD day. Image: Newcastle University

What did the teachers think? One of the teachers who participated said: “We are proud to be a Heritage School. It has given children an amazing sense of pride seeing their book in print. Each child has gained new experiences through heritage walks, walks around the immediate school area, a bridges walk along the Tyne as well as working with the Hatton Gallery artist.”

And the young people loved it too! Students said:

· “Everyone put so much effort in.”

· “It was fun learning new things about the area.”

· “I’ve never had a book with my work in and now I do I’m really proud of myself.”

Thanks to the project, there are now an additional 5 Heritage Schools in the North East. Historic England’s Victoria Angel said: “The books are absolutely fantastic – they’re wonderful. It was great to see how inspired the schools’ senior leadership teams were by them! The children really saw that the books reflected their area, and their poetry, artwork, prose, research and independent learning is clearly demonstrated in the books.”

Evaluating the project, we reflected on what an interesting collaboration this has been – and we’re hoping it will lead to additional partnership work in the future. And aren’t the alphabet books that the children created amazing?

Thank you to colleagues at Newcastle University Library, Historic England, the Hatton Gallery and Seven Stories for their contributions to this post.

A vital partnership: Seven Stories and Newcastle University

In this blog post, I’m reflecting on the Vital North Partnership’s work from 2015 to 2018, supported by Arts Council England’s Museum Resilience Fund. Through the programme, Seven Stories, The National Centre for Children’s Books have strengthened their leadership role as Britain’s home of children’s literature. Funding allowed them to invest in their strategic collaboration with Newcastle University, and supported business planning and income diversification.

Seven Stories: The National Centre for Children’s Books and Newcastle University share the ambition that Newcastle becomes a centre for excellence in children’s literature – for collections, research, learning, engagement and professional practice.

From 2015 – 2018, Seven Stories and Newcastle University worked together on the Vital North Partnership, a strategic development programme funded by Arts Council England’s Museum Resilience Fund. This aimed to:

Enhance and scale up their collaborative partnership
Increase Seven Stories’ financial resilience and diversify income
Support Seven Stories’ long-term business planning

Arts Council England funding, matched by Newcastle University, supported the employment of a Partnership Manager (me!) to lead the collaboration, and provided a project budget.

Students from Newcastle University's BA in English Literature visiting Seven Stories. Image: Newcastle University — Students from Newcastle University’s BA in English Literature visiting Seven Stories. Image: Newcastle University

Developing a museum / university partnership

The Vital North Partnership has strengthened and significantly developed Seven Stories’ collaboration with Newcastle University, through activities including:

Collaborating on the UK’s first English Literature Knowledge Transfer Partnership, supported by AHRC and InnovateUK. This embedded a research function into Seven Stories’ Collections and Exhibitions Team and informed the Michael Morpurgo: A Lifetime in Stories exhibition.
Being recognised as the Knowledge Exchange / Transfer Initiative of the Year at the Times Higher Education Leadership and Management Awards 2017.
Securing three fully-funded PhDs looking at Seven Stories’ collections and spaces, supported by Newcastle University, the AHRC and the National Productivity Investment Fund.
Seven Stories engaged with 9 undergraduate and postgraduate taught modules at Newcastle University, from Music to Geography, providing learning and skills development opportunities.
Seven Stories hosted 20 Newcastle University student internships, from museums studies to film production, helping young people to experience cultural and creative careers.
Delivering 33 joint public events, from expert talks at Newcastle University to activities for early years in Seven Stories’ Studio.

Frances Hardiinge and Aishwarya Subramanian. Image: Newcastle University — Frances Hardinge and Aishwarya Subramanian in conversation at the ‘Fantasy Worlds with Frances Hardinge’ event.. Image: Newcastle University

Increasing Seven Stories’ financial resilience

Arts Council England’s funding supported Seven Stories’ financial resilience by:

Enabling Seven Stories to invest in marketing activity and branding development to understand audiences better and encourage new and repeat visits.
The Vital North Partnership supported Seven Stories’ first crowdfunding campaign, which will enhance their work with families with additional sensory needs.
Through collaborative activity with Newcastle University, Seven Stories were able to access higher education-related funding and support, from funders such as EPSRC, The Leverhulme Trust, Horizon 2020 and ERDF.

A bird's-eye view of Newcastle Gateshead in 2065. Image: Newcastle University — A bird’s-eye view of Newcastle Gateshead in 2065, created by Seven Stories’ visitors. Image: Newcastle University

A sustainable future for Seven Stories

Through the Vital North Partnership’s work, Seven Stories invested in their infrastructure and explored how their collaboration with Newcastle University could inform a long-term business strategy:

Seven Stories invested in additional collections storage, enabling additional collection acquisitions during 2015 – 2018.
Working with Newcastle University Library, Seven Stories explored collaboratively acquiring and providing access to collections. This included working on joint outreach projects with 8 local schools, and jointly acquiring the largest private children’s literature collection in the UK.
As part of the Newcastle City Futures Urban Living Partnership, Seven Stories’ visitors explored the future of the city, informing a new architectural project on reimagining children’s spaces.
Developing a detailed options appraisal for Seven Stories’ future infrastructure, and securing funding through the Higher Education Innovation Fund to explore models for the long-term future of the collaboration.

Students with their fairytales! — Pupils with fairytale books created as part of an outreach project led by the University Library with Seven Stories and the Hatton Gallery.

Through the project, Seven Stories’ work became embedded within Newcastle University’s structures, and enhanced their financial resilience.

For Newcastle University, new research collaborations were developed, wider audiences accessed academic research, and the Partnership provided unique opportunities for teaching and learning.

The partnership between the two organisations has been recognised by Arts Council England through the 2018 – 22 National Portfolio scheme, and with match funding from Newcastle University, we are looking forward to an ambitious programme over the next four years. And for more information on that – watch this space!

For more information about the Vital North Partnership and its activity, visit https://blogs.ncl.ac.uk/vitalnorth/

JigsAudio: drawing and talking about spaces using digital technologies

How can we encourage children to imagine the spaces of the future, and how they might change? In this blog post, find out about Alexander Wilson’s JigsAudio project at Seven Stories: The National Centre for Children’s Books…

Children have fascinating insights into the places they live in, and Seven Stories are interested in how the families that visit them feel about their locality. Yet traditional approaches to urban planning are quite exclusive (and not massively creative) when it comes to consulting and involving children and young people. So what about new and alternative methods?

The Vital North Partnership has been helping Seven Stories to explore these questions through new partnerships with the School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape and Open Lab at Newcastle University.

Today I’m exploring JigsAudio, a research project led by Alexander Wilson, a doctoral trainee in the EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Digital Civics at Open Lab. Zander’s research interrogates the intersections between digital technology, design, human-computer interaction and town planning, with a focus on alternative tools and methods to participation.

Zander was first introduced to me when I was working with his academic supervisor Professor Mark Tewdwr-Jones and Newcastle City Futures around our Big Draw events in October 2016. Together, we saw an opportunity to combine planning, drawing, and digital technology. Drawing could allow Seven Stories’ visitors to overcome some of the traditional barriers to getting involved with planning.

Drawing on RFID jigsaw pieces — We drew on RFID enabled wooden jigsaw pieces and recorded messages about the future of the city. Image: Newcastle University.

From that initial conversation, Zander and his Digital Civics colleagues came up with JigsAudio. It combines drawing and colouring in jigsaw pieces, which the children and families visiting Seven Stories are familiar with, with something new: a device which allowed the children to record an audio message about their jigsaw piece. The pieces and their recordings are then combined to create a digital version of the jigsaw online.

JigsAudio’s first test was during the Big Draw in October 2016 and formed part of a range of drop in activities offered that weekend around Newcastle City Futures. Zander said, “A colourful puzzle came back with many varied visions of Newcastle and Gateshead. A five-hour barge trip along the Tyne and a colourful new bridge across the Tyne – painted in green, yellow, black, blue and purple – were just two of the ideas that emerged.”

Following that, Seven Stories also worked with Zander on a second JigsAudio activity for Summer 2017 around their Aliens Love Underpants exhibition, asking children to design and talk about alien planets and reflect on what they value about their own. For Zander: “I’m amazed at the effort the children put into their alien’s planet. It’s really interesting to see that they have such a strong sense of what is important to where they live. As well as a few aliens, we got something that’s really valuable and will hopefully lead to children getting more of a say in how places change. We’ve been underplaying their ability to understand some of the issues planning is facing and hearing their ideas has been an eye-opening exercise. It’s been a fantastic project.”

The Aliens Love Underpants JigsAudio activity at Seven Stories. Image: Alexander Wilson.

The JigsAudio technology has also been used by Nexus, the North Tyneside Youth Council and Newcastle’s Let’s Talk Parks initiative to engage citizens on the futures of places.

So what were Zander’s research findings? He found:

“That drawing and talking was effective at getting people to communicate complicated and elaborate visions that might not be easily communicated through a single media.”
“The initial low-tech appearance of the activity encouraged engagement with JigsAudio”. This was particularly important for Seven Stories’ youngest visitors, and they loved the tactile nature of the jigsaw itself. I noticed that the children really enjoyed adding their piece into the constellation of planets, for example!
“Participants were interested in how the JigsAudio device worked and wanted to take part in the activity.” This was backed up by Seven Stories Santander University Intern, Emma, who facilitated the Aliens Love Underpants JigsAudio activity: “You have to watch [the device] quite a lot because… it was quite an interesting thing for the kids; they were picking it up!”
“Through the use of JigsAudio, an artefact that represented a group’s feelings towards a topic grew.” You can see the finished digital Jigsaudio for the Big Draw 2016 here and for Aliens Love Underpants here.

The completed Big Draw JigsAudio puzzle, available at: http://jigsaudio.com/thebigdraw.html. Image: JigsAudio

For Seven Stories, using JigsAudio was an interesting way of finding out what their youngest visitors see and think about the place that they live in, and their visions of alternative spaces.

And for Zander, “I’m thinking about how we can use drawing and talking with other topics, and how we might put together a toolkit for children to make their own devices. If you’re interested in having a go with the device, or if you have your own project you’d like to use JigsAudio in, please do get in touch!”

Thanks to Zander for his help with this post! To find out more about JigsAudio, visit: http://jigsaudio.com/

Consulting with Seven Stories: a new collaboration with the Business School

In the 2017/18 academic year, Seven Stories: The National Centre for Children’s Books have worked with Newcastle University Business School on a new collaboration. Find out about how a management consultancy project is informing Seven Stories’ membership schemes and benefits in this blog post.

There’s an interesting relationship between charities and business. Charities are organisations established to meet a charitable purpose, for the public benefit – not for profit. They are part of what’s sometimes called the ‘third sector’, falling between public services and private enterprise. And of course, charities share similar activities to private companies. They generate income. They employ people. They produce end of year accounts, marketing strategies, business plans…

So, there’s a clear opportunity for the Vital North Partnership to support Seven Stories’ work through collaborations with Newcastle University Business School, with its expertise in accounting and finance, business management, marketing and economics. After initial meetings with colleagues there, we identified the third-year module, BUS3053, where third year students undertake a management consultancy project in place of a dissertation, as a great starting point.

The new Time to Get Up exhibition at Seven Stories: The National Centre for Children's Books. Image: Seven Stories, photography by Richard Kenworthy — The new Time to Get Up exhibition at Seven Stories: The National Centre for Children’s Books. Image: Seven Stories, photography by Richard Kenworthy

The purpose of the Management Consultancy Project module is to give students experience of working with a real employer on a live issue. Module leader, Sarah Carnegie, explains: “The module is one of the final year capstone modules that students at the Business School can take. It provides an opportunity for our students to apply the skills and knowledge gained in their studies and is an example of work integrated learning. Research shows this style of learning can assist students in developing their career management skills, as well as being a challenging academic project. The management consultancy projects are key to the Business School developing links with businesses and promotes employer engagement.”

Students: Louisa Abercrombie, Thomas Crozier, William Inkster, Matthew Parnell, Emma Roberts, and Amos Syn were assigned to the project. In consultation with Seven Stories, they defined a project brief to “recommend ways for the client to improve and simplify the overall performance of memberships, in order to maximise revenue in turn improving long-term sustainability.”

After initial meetings with Seven Stories’ Chief Operating Officer, Jon Riley, and Seven Stories’ Development and Relationships team in October 2017, the students began their research. They identified Seven Stories’ market position and competitors, examined Seven Stories’ existing data and secondary data and conducted and analysed primary research including surveys and focus groups.

The students' focus groups included parents with young children. Image: Seven Stories, The National Centre for Children's Books, photography by Richard Kenworthy — The students’ focus groups included parents with young children. Image: Seven Stories, The National Centre for Children’s Books, photography by Richard Kenworthy

They then used this research to inform their conclusions and a series of recommendations for enhancing Seven Stories’ membership schemes, which they presented to Seven Stories with their final consultancy portfolio and written report in March 2018.

For Emma and the student team, “Working with Seven Stories gave us all a valuable insight into challenges businesses face and allowed us to actively seek solutions to help a real situation. Every one of us developed skills, contributed to the research and gained real work experience. When we faced challenges, we worked together as a team to overcome these. We all thoroughly enjoyed forming innovative and creative solutions together with Seven Stories to enhance their fantastic business.”

Sarah Carnegie added that: “Academic staff agree the initial scope of the work that the student group may engage with, but it is down to the group to actually deliver. Each student group has weekly contact, during term time, with a member of academic staff as it is important to build momentum and it’s amazing to see how engrossed the students become in their projects and how hard they work for their clients.”

The Business School Consultancy Project looked at Seven Stories' visitor membership schemes. Image: Seven Stories, The National Centre for Children's Books, photography by Richard Kenworthy — The Business School Consultancy Project looked at Seven Stories’ visitor membership schemes. Image: Seven Stories, The National Centre for Children’s Books, photography by Richard Kenworthy

And Seven Stories were impressed with the professional way that the students approached the project. Jon said: “From the very first meeting with Emma, Tom, Will, Louisa, Matt, and Amos, it was obvious that they were really engaged with the consultancy project. They defined their own brief and worked with a number of colleagues in our team to gain a thorough understanding of our work. The conclusions the students came up with were interesting and innovative – we’re actively considering implementing some of their recommendations over the next year.”

What’s next? We’re discussing a second management consultancy opportunity with Seven Stories for the 2018/19 BUS3053 cohort. We’re also talking about collaborating as part of Newcastle University Business School’s MBA internship pilot later in 2018. Watch this space!

Little Folk, Seven Stories and Music BA Honours

Last year, Newcastle University’s Music BA Honours students and Seven Stories: The National Centre for Children’s Books collaborated for the first time to deliver a musical event. Find out how this collaboration has developed in 2017/18 and explore this year’s sold-out Little Folk performance.

On 8th March 2018, Seven Stories hosted a special event, Little Folk, organised by students Imogen Bose-Ward, Megan Savage, Ada Francis, Becca Twist and Frankie Hay from Newcastle University’s Music BA Honours course.

The students were undertaking the third year Music Enterprise module, which required them to plan and deliver a musical event. This gives students practical experience and insight into event planning, and helps them to develop skills in organisation, negotiating, networking, PR, marketing and finance. Here’s module leader Jane Nolan talking about the module, and how it links to her research (video by Evripidis Karydis, who’s currently undertaking an NCL Internship with Seven Stories):

Having worked with this cohort to deliver a Musical Creepy Crawlies event at Seven Stories in March 2017, Seven Stories were happy to offer this year’s students the same opportunity – to deliver an event as part of their public events programme. In October 2017, I went to one this year’s initial Music Enterprise lectures to meet the students and talk to them about Seven Stories.

Straight after the lecture, Imogen emailed me to let me know that her group wanted to work with us: ‘We are really interested to collaborate with Seven Stories to create an event based around music, dance and storytelling from around Newcastle.’

The student organising team run through the Little Folk programme with the performers. Image: Newcastle University

And – that’s exactly what they did! Over the months leading up to March, with support from Jane and the Seven Stories team, the students developed an interactive event, Little Folk, exploring folk songs and stories from the North East. They approached folk performers Alistair Anderson, Amber Jayne Cox and Heather Ferrier to take part, developed the programme and accompanying handouts, and created some beautiful marketing materials:

The Little Folk poster, produced by the Music BA Honours students.

And all their hard work led to a sold-out event on 8th March at Seven Stories. The families who came to Little Folk sang the Blaydon Races with Amber, heard Alastair tell the story of the Lambton Worm and Heather taught us how to clog dance. And alongside that we heard the Northumbrian pipes, waved ribbons and played with sensory props, and even tried out the concertina! Here’s a taster of the event in the Little Folk promotional video that the students created:

For Imogen and the student organising team, “We were delighted to see such a fantastic turn out and we were really pleased with the event itself and some of the feedback we received from the audience. Hosting an event in collaboration with Seven Stories has been a really fascinating process, and it has been incredibly rewarding seeing how our input into such a brilliant charity has created an event that will hopefully leave an impression on the young audience. Seven Stories have a fantastic loyal audience base, which helped us sell out our debut event. We are now interested in developing what was initially supposed to be a one-time event for a university module into something larger, perhaps by looking into how this event could be held in other areas of the country where there are musical and cultural traditions.”

The Little Folk event at Seven Stories. Image: Newcastle University

From Jane’s perspective as their module leader, “The students created an excellent event, with a strong brand and a compelling storyline for their marketing, which has enabled them to attract and engage their audience. They have developed a workshop format which could provide the basis for a future creative enterprise. The Music Enterprise module is intended to help students prepare for their future careers in the creative sector, which may be freelance or self-managed. The Little Folk team have devised, organised and presented a highly successful event, working in an effective partnership with Seven Stories, which will have enhanced their skills and confidence, personal resilience and professional development, and has added to their CVs.”

And Seven Stories loved it! Rose Mockford, Events Co-ordinator, said: “It has been a pleasure to work with this group of students who demonstrated a high degree of professionalism in all aspects of their event planning. Our young visitors and their families really engaged with the varied event programme which the students had devised and our unique Attic space was used effectively create a relaxed family event.”

“Little Folk was particularly special as it offered the opportunity for young people to creatively collaborate with Seven Stories to share local musical traditions and engage and build our audiences. Since this event we have hosted another musical event from Opera North and many visitors booked for this having first attended Little Folk – a true testament to the success of the project!”

Thanks to the students for all their hard work in delivering such a successful event! And it seems appropriate to end with a quote from The Blaydon Races: “Thor wes lots o’ lads and lasses there, all with smiling faces…”

Filming Seven Stories’ Life-Changing Stories campaign

Seven Stories: The National Centre for Children’s Books are currently raising £7,000 to put children with additional needs at the heart of their story. In this post, hear how film production intern and Newcastle University PhD candidate Evripidis Karydis has supported Seven Stories’ very first crowdfunding campaign…

Seven Stories believe that stories help children to understand the world around them, and that every child regardless of age, gender, background and ability should have the opportunity to enjoy this experience.

With this in mind and with the promise of 50% match funding from the Community Foundation Tyne and Wear, they decided to try crowdfunding for the first time to secure additional funding from their supporters and the public. Seven Stories will be using the money raised to fund a range of accessible events and experiences designed specifically for children with sensory and additional needs.

Launching the Life-changing Stories campaign, Kate Edwards, Seven Stories’ Chief Executive, said: “Our ambition is for Seven Stories to be a hub for parents and carers of children with disabilities to socialise, play and learn more about how to enrich their children’s lives through the wonderful world of children’s books.”

This campaign video was filmed and edited by PhD student Evripidis Karydis (or Evris, for short!), who produced two 4 minute trailer videos to support the communications. Evris is undertaking an NCL Internship through Newcastle University’s Careers Service. NCL Internships are open to all current Newcastle University students, and offer a placement of up to 100 hours during University terms and a student bursary of £750, made up of contributions from the business and the University.

Marketing and Communications Manager Victoria Sanderson, said of Evris’ work on the crowdfunding campaign: “Evris’ performance throughout the project was exceptional; he offered expert guidance when it was required, identified any risks prior to filming which increased efficiency, met deadlines, used his initiative when editing the videos and was accommodating with amends, even when they arrived after signing-off. Overall, Evris was professional and a delight to work with.”

This built on Evris’ previous internship with Seven Stories in the 2016/17 academic year, where he filmed Seven Stories’ Living Books project in early years settings, working with the Creative Learning and Engagement Team.

For Evris, “having already completed a NCL internship with Seven Stories during the 2016/17 academic year it was not difficult for me to decide to work with the foundation once again. The people at Seven Stories are true professionals and really helped me to produce high quality videos for their causes. Furthermore, the reason behind the crowdfunding campaign was another motivation for me to say yes and work once more with Seven Stories and I am pleased that my videos contributed in order to achieve the goal of raising £7000.”

“Being an aspiring filmmaker myself working through my internship I have managed again to practice my filmmaking craft and helped me develop my communication skills.”

“The highlight for me during my placement was when I got the chance to film a family for the crowdfunding campaign video as it gave me a good insight of the people who were going to be benefited by the campaign.”

“I truly believe that the work being done at Seven Stories is really important as it is making a massive difference in children’s lives and their families and I would really like to work with them again in the future.”

Take a look at Evris’ second video from the Life-changing Stories campaign:

And the results? Well, Seven Stories hit over 75% of their funding target in the first day of the crowdfunding campaign, which is amazing news! Thank you to Evris for helping to make this campaign such a success. But they still need a few more donations to hit their £7000 target before 2^nd April 2018 – can you help Seven Stories to ensure that every child is part of their story?

Find out more about the campaign and donate now at: http://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/life-changing-stories

Seven Stories’ first Northern Bridge placement

In this post, Northern Bridge PhD student Amy Burnside reflects on her six-month placement at Seven Stories: The National Centre for Children’s Books in 2017. The Northern Bridge Doctoral Training Partnership is formed of Newcastle University, Durham University and Queen’s University Belfast and their strategic partners and is funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council.

In June of last year, I packed up my books and my notes and closed the door to my office at Queen’s University Belfast for six months. As a Northern Bridge doctoral student I was given the opportunity to take up a placement with one of the consortium’s partner organisations and naturally, I jumped at the chance! I chose to work with Seven Stories for several reasons – firstly, books were foundational to my childhood, and my love of literature has seen me through two (and a half) degrees in the field. The thought of seeing some original material up close was exciting! Secondly, I liked the idea of working with an organisation that has strengths in public engagement, both through the visitor centre and at the archive. As the final year of my PhD roared into view, I was also aware of the need to plan for the next stage in my career, and I was keen to develop some skills beyond those which writing a thesis can offer.

So what have I been up to? The simple answer is LOTS of things!

The Comics exhibition at Seven Stories. Image: Seven Stories, The National Centre for Children’s Books, photography by Rich Kenworthy

When I first arrived in Newcastle, the team at Seven Stories were gearing up for a changeover in one of their gallery spaces. During these times they need all-hands-on-deck to get things ready for a new exhibition, and so I was kitted out in steel-toed boots and put to work! I was able to assist with de-installing the Michael Morpurgo exhibition (by taking artwork off the walls, scraping off vinyl lettering, changing light-bulbs and dismantling built props) and installing the Comics exhibition (almost the same in reverse!). It was great to start my time at the visitor centre, getting some very hands-on experience in the public-facing side of museum work. Later on, I had a chance to do some audience research in the Comics gallery, and it was lovely to see families and children engaging with the space and the objects on display.

Ruth Gervis, RG/01/01/03,13,31. Selection of finished pencil drawings for Ballet Shoes, circa 1936. © Estate of Ruth Gervis

After things had calmed down a bit, it was time to learn how to use CALM, the management system used by the archive to record their holdings. Once I had got to grips with this, I was able to tackle my first collection – Noel Streatfeild’s – which included original manuscripts, correspondence, and personal diaries. This was exciting for me as a life-long fan of Ballet Shoes, and the collection granted me a much better insight into Streatfeild’s writing practices, and the personal experiences which shaped her stories. It was incredibly satisfying to take charge of the collection, ensuring it was organised, repackaged and catalogued in an accessible way, while respecting as much of the original order as possible. Even more satisfying was getting to see the material in use before I left. You can read more about the collection in my post for the Seven Stories blog.

After completing work on the Streatfeild collection, I spent a bit of time in the world of the Wombles sorting through some of Elisabeth Beresford’s huge collection. The Wombles material had been worked on by several volunteers before me, and will probably require the attentions of a few more before it is complete. I realised just how lengthy the cataloguing process can be in a collection of that scale, and I was better prepared for the final collection I worked on, which ran to almost 50 boxes! Working on this was especially exciting as I knew the material would be used extensively – I was given the chance to select items and write some copy for the collection highlights page, as well as liaising with senior curator, Gill Rennie, and presenting some of the material to various teams in the organisation. Unfortunately I can’t say much more about this mystery collection yet, but keep your eyes peeled for an exciting new exhibition this summer!

Amy helping at the Living Books party. Image: Seven Stories, The National Centre for Children’s Books

Although work at the archive took up the majority of my time, the team gave me the chance to get involved with lots of varied activities in the organisation, from working at white glove handling sessions (at a wedding, a conference and a schools project) to helping at a celebration event for the Living Books project. There was never a dull moment, and I’m really thankful to all the wonderful members of staff for their patience in showing me the ropes and sharing their fantastic knowledge of children’s literature, as well as making me feel right at home in the office.

I’m now back to normality in Belfast, finishing my thesis and missing the Seven Stories tea breaks. I learned so much during my placement, and would highly recommend applying for Northern Bridge funding – it’s a fantastic opportunity to test the waters of research-adjacent careers, while completing your thesis. I would come back to Seven Stories tomorrow if I could, so here’s hoping it won’t be the last you’ll see of me!

Amy Burnside

Thanks Amy! Everyone at Seven Stories really appreciated all your hard work. This was a really successful first Northern Bridge placement experience for Seven Stories, so much so that we’ve just welcomed our second placement student!

A Place at the Table 2018

On 6th February 2018, thanks to a bursary from CILIP North East, I attended Inclusive Minds’ third annual A Place at the Table event at Penguin Random House in London. A Place at the Table aims to provide a space for the children’s book industry to share best practice around inclusion and diversity and commit to taking practical actions to effect change. In this blog post, I’ll be reflecting on the day and outlining some of the actions that Seven Stories: The National Centre for Children’s Books and Newcastle University are taking through the Vital North Partnership…

Author Juno Dawson, in her opening keynote, celebrated how far the publishing industry has come since the first A Place at the Table event in 2016. She mentioned lots of amazing books and authors – from Patrice Lawrence’s prize-winning debut Orangeboy, to Angie Thomas’s bestselling The Hate U Give – and new initiatives like CILIP’s current diversity review of the Carnegie and Kate Greenaway Awards. I noted lots of books I want to read – including Juno’s!

Author Juno Dawson opened the A Place at the Table event. Image: Inclusive Minds

Then there were the roundtable and forum discussions, where we discussed barriers to authentic inclusion, and identified ways to shift these. For Seven Stories, the artform of children’s literature is at the heart of everything they do – and it’s by going to events like this that they can flag up with publishers that inclusion is fundamental to the national story they aim to tell. Seven Stories’ workforce (like that of many arts organisations) is not particularly diverse – they’re aiming to shift that barrier through targeted pathways to work programmes from 2018 to 2022.

Highlights of the day for me were hearing from Year 10 pupil Jarvia, one of Inclusive Minds’ Ambassadors, about her reading experiences – she spoke about reading new writing on Wattpad as she feels it’s less filtered – and I loved hearing Jay Hulme’s “angry trans” performance poetry (his description!):

In the afternoon discussions, I ended up sat next to the author, actress and presenter Cerrie Burnell. In her presentation, she talked about how the books she read as a child didn’t reflect her experience. She recounted a story about playing at Peter Pan in the playground: there was already a Wendy and a Tinkerbell, so one of the other children suggested that she could be Captain Hook – Cerrie was adamant that she was more of a Tigerlily. Cerrie encouraged her fellow authors to represent difference in an incidental way: “write the thing that you know, or write the thing that you want to see.”

Robin Stevens, author of the Murder Most Unladylike mysteries, talked about the two types of offence her writing might potentially cause (the one she loses sleep over is making errors about misrepresenting cultures and experiences outside of her own, which is why in her recent books she has been working with sensitivity readers) and Di Airey of Diversity Dynamics reminded us that although publishing is in some ways ahead of other sectors, that we still have a way to go: “There’s not enough change: there are too many people who hide an aspect of their difference.”

Discussion inclusion, equality and diversity at A Place At The Table. Image: Inclusive Minds — Discussion inclusion, equality and diversity at A Place at the Table. Image: Inclusive Minds

I also heard about so many other initiatives and voices over the course of the day through the insights and case studies: from new publishers like Knights Of; titles including Penny Joelson’s I Have No Secrets and Otter-Barry Books and Pop-Up Projects’ Rising Stars anthology; initiatives like Penguin Random House’s WriteNow programme; prizes like the Amnesty CILIP Honour; accessible events as part of the Southbank Centre’s Imagine Festival. I’m taking lots of ideas and contacts away from the event to follow up on.

It was an inspiring and thought-provoking day, but ensuring the Vital North Partnership’s activities are inclusive is an ongoing process. We’ve done some interesting work, such as our Diverse Voices? symposium in November, and our recent Geographies of Gender and Generation collaboration, and in 2018, we’ll be focussing on BAME voices in children’s literature and activist networks through a new AHRC Creative Economy postdoctoral fellowship led by Dr Aishwarya Subramanian. But there’s still more to do. As Juno said so eloquently in her opening keynote: “The worst thing we can do is think we’ve done it, we’ve achieved diversity. We haven’t done diversity. You can’t tick diversity off the list.”

For more information about A Place at the Table 2018, visit: http://www.inclusiveminds.com/a-place-at-the-table-2018.php

Geography, gender and generation at Seven Stories

This academic year, a new teaching and learning collaboration between Newcastle University’s School of Geography, Politics and Sociology and Seven Stories: The National Centre for Children’s Books brought university students and local primary school children together to explore ideas around gender through an intergenerational practice workshop. In this blog post, I explain how the project came about, what happened, and what we’re doing next…

Seven Stories believes that the books children read help them to better understand themselves and the world around them, and they are passionate about championing inclusive children’s literature.

Dr Michael Richardson, leader of the Geography BA’s third year module Geographies of Gender and Generation, approached Seven Stories last summer about a new teaching collaboration focussing on challenging gender stereotypes. As part of this module, students are asked to develop a campaign or activity which promotes gender equality, and then reflect on this through a written assignment. In the 2017 / 18 academic year, Dr Richardson wanted to provide a focus for his students that would allow them to “explore intergenerational practice as an intervention method for the promotion of gender equality”. Having previously worked with Seven Stories on their 2015 Big Ideas project, Dr Richardson saw Seven Stories as a potential collaborator.

Students exploring children's books in the Seven Stories workshops. Image: Newcastle University — Students exploring children’s books in the Seven Stories workshops. Image: Newcastle University

After receiving support through the School of Geography, Politics and Sociology’s Learning, Teaching and Student Experience fund to kickstart the project, we developed resources and a programme of student workshops, leading to a final event with children and young people at Seven Stories.

In the first workshop, Jayne Humphreys (Learning and Participation Co-ordinator at Seven Stories) and I introduced the students to issues around gender representation in children’s literature. We also introduced the five books that the students would be focussing on in the final schools event:

Dogs Don’t Do Ballet, by Anna Kemp and Sara Ogilvie (Simon and Schuster, 2010)
Tough Guys (Have Feelings Too), by Keith Negley (Flying Eye Books, 2015)
Fantastically Great Women Who Changed the World, by Kate Pankhurst (Bloomsbury, 2016)
Izzy Gizmo, by Pip Jones and Sara Ogilvie (Simon and Schuster, 2017)
Introducing Teddy, by Jessica Walton (Bloomsbury, 2016)

Next, the students were asked to pitch which book theywould like to work with. The students said:

“[Izzy Gizmo] promotes the idea of science and technology as a viable career choice for young girls rather than the typical caring roles that are often shown in children’s books. I also like… that the main character is of an ethnic minority”

“I think [Tough Guys (Have Feelings Too)] is… about allowing people of all genders to be more well-rounded human beings. Encouraging emotional literacy in boys in particular is a really simple and effective way to tackle a number of serious issues… This benefits everyone, including women”

Chi Onwurah MP spoke to the students about gender in the workplace. Image: Newcastle University

Having chosen their books, the second student workshop focussed on storytelling and engagement techniques. Jayne led the students through Seven Stories’ approach to story times and how to use stories as a starting point for other conversations and activities. MP for Newcastle Central Chi Onwurah also attended this session, speaking to the students about the gendered workplace.

In November 2017, the students welcomed a class of Year 5 children from nearby Hotspur Primary School to Seven Stories. Working in groups, the students presented a 30-minute session with a small group of children, where they read their story together, discussed the questions about gender that the books raised, and took part in activities such as games, dressing up and drawing.

Students reading stories to the children from Hotspur Primary School. Image: Newcastle University

The students said:

“I thought it was a really creative way to put something we’ve learnt in lectures into a real-life situation.”

“I think the event at Seven Stories was really beneficial for us, as well as the children. Storytelling is definitely a good way of getting some big ideas out to them… I’m going to use this event as experience towards my future teaching career too.”

Teaching staff at Hotspur Primary School said, “We all had such a wonderful time at Seven Stories – what a great workshop!”

For Dr Michael Richardson, “This collaboration with Seven Stories has enabled me to enhance my teaching practice and improve the student experience. My module promotes intergenerational practice, or in other words, methods of bringing groups of people of different ages together. Of particular note was the impact of the local primary school children on my final year undergraduate students. This highlighted just how much children have to teach us as older people and reinforced just how much intergenerational work is a two-way learning process.”

The students leading their session with children from Hotspur Primary School at Seven Stories. Image: Newcastle University

And Jayne Humphreys said: “For Seven Stories, this has been a wonderful opportunity to engage the children of Hotspur Primary and to work collaboratively with the University students. Using children’s literature to challenge, inspire and empower children and young people is at the heart of the work we do at Seven Stories and it was a pleasure to be part of a project which brought intergenerational groups together and engage children in our local community to think about these big issues.”

What’s next? The students have submitted their assignments reflecting on the workshop, and these are being assessed; I’ll also be interested to hear their reflections on this in their module evaluation questionnaires. Following that, we’ll be evaluating the project and thinking about plans for next year. So, watch this space!

Thanks to the GEO3135 students, Dr Michael Richardson, Jayne Humphreys and Hotspur Primary School for their contributions to this blog post.

Culture change: new approaches to higher education and cultural sector collaborations

Universities and cultural organisations are working more closely than ever before. New roles and initiatives are emerging to manage these collaborations…

Navigating a challenging funding landscape, arts and cultural organisations are increasingly collaborating to make their resources stretch further and engage new audiences. Universities are similarly turning to partners, who can help to demonstrate impact beyond the academy, support challenge-based research funding bids and enhance the (increasingly expensive) student experience.

Aside from these external drivers, there are synergies between the two sectors. Both arts organisations and HEIs can be seen as ‘anchor institutions’, not-for-profit organisations which contribute to learning, economic growth, skills development and community engagement within their regions. Many universities run their own cultural venues; some of our national cultural institutions are eligible to apply for RCUK funding through their status as Independent Research Organisations. You could say we’re natural partners.

And as the overlap between our missions, activities and communities creeps closer, new opportunities for collaboration are unlocked. However, the Museum and Universities Partnership Initiative identifies that partnerships between universities and cultural organisations imply ‘equality… longevity… shared objectives and risks’. So working in partnership requires just that – work. But how are organisations managing these relationships?

The National Archives and RLUK's Discovering Collections, Discovering Communities conference. Photo by Matt Blair. — The National Archives and RLUK’s Discovering Collections, Discovering Communities conference. Photo by Matt Blair.

Roles at the edge

For larger organisations managing multiple cultural or HEI partnerships, co-ordination functions often sit with a team within the organisation’s staff structure. The National Archives’ Academic Engagement team co-ordinate engagement with academic audiences; Kings College London’s Cultural Institute facilitates collaborations between the University and the cultural sector.

But as you drill down to a collaboration between an individual university and arts organisation, new partnership models and roles, like mine, are beginning to emerge.

Newcastle University students visit the Bears exhibition at Seven Stories, which was supported by a Knowledge Transfer Partnership between the two organisations. Image: Newcastle University

Spanning the boundaries

I manage the partnership between Seven Stories: The National Centre for Children’s Books and Newcastle University. I identify myself as working for the partnership, or, both partners, simultaneously. My post is jointly funded by the partners and Arts Council England and is embedded within the staff structure of both organisations.

Our partnership is built on a shared ambition: that Newcastle becomes a centre for excellence in children’s literature. My work focuses on initiatives which are genuinely beneficial for both organisations, support our jointly agreed objectives and progress our long-term relationship.

Of course, working for two different institutions isn’t perfect – just imagine working between four different offices and two IT systems – but it’s a model that’s proving successful. Since 2015, our partnership has generated over £800,000 worth of funded activity and engaged with over 100,000 people. And beyond the numbers, I think that more interesting and innovative things happen at this intersection.

A collective ‘brand’

An extension of this model is Opera North and the University of Leeds’ pioneering DARE collaboration, positioned as a collective ‘brand’ embedded within both organisations. Celebrating its 10^th anniversary this year, the partnership has impressive statistics, encompassing more than 250 projects and attracting £3million in new funding.

DARE Director Lesley Patrick says: “The fundamental pillars to building the relationship included identifying areas of common ambition, to form an equal partnership with a common language. This created a framework which removes ‘policing’ and allows conversations to breathe.”

“DARE has allowed each organisation to prioritise the development of initiatives that make a positive contribution to achieving its own ambitions. It drives the partners to think and act more broadly, outside the traditional spheres – it enables business development.”

Participants in Northumbria University, Tyne and Wear Archives and Museums and Seven Stories' MUPI-funded project, A Taste of Home, explore the Bears exhibition at Seven Stories. — Participants in Northumbria University, Tyne and Wear Archives and Museums and Seven Stories’ MUPI-funded project, A Taste of Home, explore the Bears exhibition at Seven Stories.

Networks of partnerships

And as partnerships between the sectors increase, new co-ordination initiatives are developing to support, catalyse and highlight activity. Culture Forum North launched in 2015, bringing over 50 Higher Education and cultural sector partners in the North together to discuss collaborations. The National Co-ordinating Centre for Public Engagement’s MUPI project, which began in 2015, brokers and analyses partnership activity between small to medium-sized museums and HEIs.

There’s a culture change going on here: arts research and arts organisations are demonstrating that our sectors can work together innovatively and effectively. But external funding is still primarily sector-specific. Arts Council England and the Arts and Humanities Research Council have yet to release a collaborative funding call. Perhaps there’s an opportunity here for our funders to work in partnership, too?