Teaching – Page 2 – Vital North Partnership

A Wombling Career Development Module at Seven Stories

Newcastle University’s Career Development Module enables stage two or final year students on selected degree programmes to complete a 20 credit module by undertaking a volunteering placement. This academic year, Seven Stories: The National Centre for Children’s Books have got involved in this module for the first time. Today I’m welcoming Charlie Shovlar to the Vital North Partnership blog to tell us all about her experience…

We like the Wombles because... Image: Seven Stories: The National Centre for Children's Books — We like the Wombles because… Image: Seven Stories: The National Centre for Children’s Books

Hi Charlie! Tell us a bit about yourself.

Hello! I’m Charlie, a stage 3 Combined Honours student at Newcastle University; my subjects are Media, Communication and Cultural Studies and Philosophy.

What attracted you to do a Career Development Module with Seven Stories?

I’d previously been to the Visitor Centre in Ouseburn and loved it – the atmosphere, the exhibitions, everything. So when it came to choosing my placement, I was excited to see that Seven Stories was offering not one but three different options! Marketing, Environment, and Collections. I realised the Collections placement sounded best suited to me.

What are the benefits of doing a Career Development Module over a standard taught 20 credit module?

As I’m in my final year, this was my last chance to do a Career Development Module. I didn’t have any workplace experience, so throwing myself into a placement seemed like a good thing to do to help me gain important skills, especially as it would count for module credits at the same time.

So what have you been doing on your volunteering placement at Seven Stories?

During initial discussions about the placement with my supervisors, it came up that they had the Elisabeth Beresford collection, which was in need of sorting out! I have fond memories of The Wombles from when I was little, so I was very happy when they suggested my main task could be to organise the collection. I’ve come across some lovely illustrations, still images from the Wombling Free film, and countless adorable stories.

Great Uncle Bulgaria illustration, from The Wombles Annual 1980. Image: Seven Stories, The National Centre for Children's Books — Great Uncle Bulgaria illustration, from The Wombles Annual 1980. Image: Seven Stories, The National Centre for Children’s Books

Towards the end of my placement I had the opportunity to spend some time at the Visitor Centre shadowing a Storycatcher and getting involved in a workshop with a school group, which was really fun. I also helped to review children’s books for the Hooks into Books scheme, which involves compiling packs of books that people across the Seven Stories team have read and reviewed, and sending them to primary schools.

What skills are you developing as part of your volunteering placement?

There has been opportunity to develop so many skills, new and existing. Aside from the Graduate Skills Framework that I need to keep track of for the module assessments, I noticed my work ethic improving a great deal – when I do work at home for other modules I get distracted all the time, but in the Seven Stories office the only distraction is the manuscripts I’m sorting through.

Also my planning and organisational skills have come on miles, as I have to make detailed notes each week so that I know where to begin next time. If I hadn’t written down where a particular few pieces of paper were, they could have been lost forever!

Still from The Wombles film. Image: Seven Stories, The National Centre for Children's Books — Still from The Wombles film. Image: Seven Stories, The National Centre for Children’s Books

How will the Career Development Module impact on your future studies, research or career plans?

The module has required me to take a good look at my skills to consider what sort of career is best suited to my strengths. I’m never going to be amazing at communicating, but the work I’ve done at my placement has made me feel that I’m capable of more than I thought.

A personal skills audit that we did in one of the module seminars revealed that by far my main strength is personal enterprise – that means problem-spotting, coming up with creative solutions, and embracing new perspectives. Hopefully I can bring this to wherever I end up after I graduate.

Is there anything else you’d like to tell us?

Just that I’ve massively enjoyed my time at Seven Stories, thank you for the experience and I’m going to miss the team.

Go Wombles!

Thanks Charlie! If you’re interested in undertaking a Career Development Module in 2017/18, have a look at Seven Stories’ Collections and Exhibitions placements and apply now.

Seven Stories showcases new student artwork for The Late Shows 2017

In May, cultural venues across Newcastle Gateshead participate in The Late Shows, part of the Museums at Night initiative. For this year’s Late Shows, Seven Stories: The National Centre for Children’s Books presented new artworks by students from Newcastle University’s MA in Creative Arts Practice, a postgraduate programme which focusses on creativity, interdisciplinary projects and digital technologies.

The MA in Creative Arts Practice programme director, Dr Tom Schofield, suggested the collaboration as part of an existing module around Enterprise and Research Methods. Dr Schofield said: “In our programme, we think about professional practice in terms of the way that our work makes sense in public. What does it mean to work with others? What do you need to make your work work in this environment?” This fitted with Seven Stories’ commitment to supporting emerging arts professionals, and presenting art and engaging audiences are core activities for the organisation.

Following a successful application for Teaching Development Funding from the University, module leaders Dr Schofield, Tim Shaw and Professor John Bowers, the Seven Stories team and I discussed a programme of activities that would lead to the MA in Creative Arts Practice students presenting a new artwork for The Late Shows 2017, when Seven Stories offers free entry late into the evening and attracts a large and diverse audience. The starting point was collaborating to come up with a suitable commission brief for the students to respond to.

MA in Creative Arts Practice students at Seven Stories for a site visit. Image: Newcastle University

In March, the MA in Creative Arts Practice students came on a site visit to Seven Stories, where Seven Stories’ staff explained the commission brief, talked about our experience of The Late Shows, and the students had the opportunity to explore the different spaces at Seven Stories. They even took part in a story time!

The students had around a month to respond to the brief with a costed artistic proposal. All the proposals submitted showed creativity, and the students had clearly thought about Seven Stories as an organisation, and what might be suitable for our spaces and audiences.

Will Finn and Rosie Calvert perform at Seven Stories.

Seven Stories chose to commission two of the students, Lewis Brown and Mike Hirst, to deliver new works. We worked closely with the students as they planned their Late Shows activity over the weeks leading up to Friday 19th May, so that all of the partners were fully prepared.

Lewis curated a series of pop-up musical and poetry performances around Seven Stories, which responded to the building’s spaces and themes. Lewis said: “With Seven Stories’ support, I was able to facilitate a diverse programme of local performers popping up throughout the venue for guests to discover. Working with Seven Stories has been a pleasure and a great opportunity to apply my creative practice on a larger scale than I ever had previously!”

Dr Schofield observed that “audiences formed naturally around the events and they gelled nicely with the spaces… the performers referenced parts of the exhibition around them, using props and standing in different places, which contributed significantly to the integrated feel of the performances.” From Seven Stories’ perspective, Lewis’ programme really brought the bookshop, café and galleries to life. Operations Manager Jayne Nicholson said: “It was all very well planned – the whole building was buzzing!”

Mike presented an interactive artwork in Seven Stories’ Studio space, inspired by early children’s books. Over the course of the evening, he pulled together social media posts about Seven Stories and The Late Shows to create new chapbooks, which he printed and constructed with visitors. For Mike, taking part in The Late Shows “allowed me to fuse contemporary experience with archive content to create new and exciting possibilities.”

Mike’s artwork was complemented by a display of historic chapbooks from Seven Stories’ Collection, led by Collections Officer, Paula Wride. Paula said: “Having the old and new chapbooks together really worked well – and it was the first time we’ve really explored chapbooks at Seven Stories.” Dr Schofield echoes that sentiment: “Mike’s work felt like a very natural complement to the Studio activities. The work took on a recursive aspect as people started to tweet pictures and descriptions of the chapbooks themselves which were then reincluded!”

Mike engages with Seven Stories' Late Shows visitors. — Mike with Professor John Bowers and Seven Stories Chief Executive Kate Edwards.

From the perspective of the MA in Creative Arts Practice, this filled the programme’s objectives by encouraging the students to respond to the challenges of a space and event format. Dr Schofield said: “I thought they stage managed the evening extremely competently and really added to the event at Seven Stories. It was a great success.”

Over 800 people visited over the course of the evening and Seven Stories were very happy with how the event went. Chief Executive Kate Edwards said: “What a fab time we had at The Late Shows! Loads of happy visitors, a great atmosphere and something going on everywhere you looked. The MA in Creative Arts Practice students were great!”

Lewis Brown performs in the Michael Morpurgo gallery at Seven Stories for The Late Shows 2017. — Lewis performs in the Michael Morpurgo gallery at Seven Stories for The Late Shows 2017.

What is freedom? Community Curriculum Making, Seven Stories and Mountfield Primary School

As Newcastle University’s Research Centre for Learning and Teaching publish their Schools’ and Partners’ Guide to Community Curriculum Making Through Enquiry and Project Based Learning, this post investigates a recent example of this research in practice. Seven Stories: The National Centre for Children’s Books worked on an archive-based project in partnership with Mountfield Primary School in Newcastle using a drama and arts approach which explored the question: ‘What is freedom?’

Professor David Leat and Ulrike Thomas describe enquiry and project based learning as an approach which “encourages schools to use the resources for education that exist in their community and locality.” Engaging with the community “takes students to new places, allows them to meet new people… this gives them raw material from which to construct more positive identities, overcome stereotypes and prejudices and inform their aspirations.”

This research aligns with Seven Stories’ approach to creative learning and engagement and their objective ‘to explore how to empower children to better shape their own worlds’. It also has synergies with the ‘immersive curriculum’ that Mountfield Primary School are embedding. Seven Stories introduced partners at Mountfield to the Centre for Learning and Teaching’s work on Community Curriculum Making, and together they embarked on a new project exploring this framework.

What is freedom? Image: Seven Stories, The National Centre for Children's Books, photography by Richard Kenworthy — What is freedom? Image: Seven Stories, The National Centre for Children’s Books, photography by Richard Kenworthy

The starting point for the project was an essential question that the children would explore: ‘What is freedom?’. The project built on Seven Stories’ programme of engagement around the Beverley Naidoo collection, and framed the children as ‘researchers in their own journey’.

The Year 6 class spent their first school term studying Beverley Naidoo’s book, Journey to Jo’burg, which has been in print for 30 years and is represented within the Seven Stories Collection. The book was released during Apartheid and banned by the South African Government. It tells the story of black South African siblings, who risk an illegal, 250km journey to find their mother, a servant in a white household in Johannesburg, because their baby sister is gravely ill.

The students, led by Seven Stories’ Learning & Participation Manager Debbie Beeks, explored the themes of the book through drama and writing, examined related items from our archive and enjoyed an opportunity to Skype with author Beverley.

Seven Stories Learning and Participation Manager Debbie Beeks. Image: Seven Stories, The National Centre for Children’s Books, photography by Richard Kenworthy

The children made mining heritage connections between the North East’s coalmining tradition and the goldmines of South Africa that feature in the story. They met Dave Temple, an ex-miner who led the South African miners’ solidarity campaign with the National Union of Mineworkers. This helped them to make connections between the local and global communities.

The project culminated in the Year 6 children inviting Year 5 and Professor David Leat to visit their pop-up ‘Museum of Freedom’ in Seven Stories’ Attic, which they curated themselves. The objects that they displayed in the Museum of Freedom were created using Seven Stories’ Artefictions approach, which sees the creation of artefacts from fiction, to tell the story in exhibition-form.

Seven Stories' Collections and Exhibitions Assistant, Danielle McAloon, shows the children items from the Beverley Naidoo Collection. Image: Seven Stories, The National Centre for Children's Books, photography by Richard Kenworthy — Seven Stories’ Collections and Exhibitions Assistant, Danielle McAloon, shows the children items from the Beverley Naidoo Collection. Image: Seven Stories, The National Centre for Children’s Books, photography by Richard Kenworthy

“Interesting. It made me want to learn more.” Year 6 student, Mountfield Primary School

“I feel proud, back then I wasn’t that ‘into it’. Reading Journey to Jo’burg got me into our project.” Year 6 student, Mountfield Primary School

“The Naidoo archive offers such rich and powerful source material for children to explore literary heritage and world history. It’s vital that Seven Stories is able to open up the archive for children to make sense of the world and have ownership of their future narratives. It was a privilege to be part of this project and to research and learn alongside year 5 students and their class teacher at Mountfield.” Debbie Beeks, Seven Stories

Mountfield Primary School children with their Museum of Freedom. Image: Seven Stories, The National Centre for Children's Books, photography by Richard Kenworthy — Mountfield Primary School children with their Museum of Freedom. Image: Seven Stories, The National Centre for Children’s Books, photography by Richard Kenworthy

In evaluating the approach and impact of this project, Debbie Beeks and Gary Robson (Year 6 Teacher at Mountfield Primary School) found that the Arts Council England Quality Principles and Newcastle University’s Community Curriculum Making research had complementary characteristics. These gave them a common language and frameworks to explore the rich artistic opportunities that the collaboration presented. The children were able to navigate literature and the arts, from the local to the global, through their own learning journey.

“From talking to and watching the students I am certain that many of them will remember this project into their adult life. This is a brilliant illustration of how ‘going places, like Seven Stories, meeting people like Dave and Debbie, and doing and making things, like the pop up museum’ takes the curriculum onto a another level of meaning.” Professor David Leat, Newcastle University

The Schools’ and Partners’ Guide to Community Curriculum Making through Enquiry and Project Based Learning guide was supported by ESRC Impact Acceleration funding. With thanks to Laura Barrett and Debbie Beeks at Seven Stories, and Professor David Leat and Ulrike Thomas at Newcastle University, for their help with writing this blog post.

Music students deliver enterprising event at Seven Stories

In March 2017, a group of third year students on Newcastle University’s third year Music Enterprise module delivered a Musical Creepy Crawlies event at Seven Stories: The National Centre for Children’s Books. Here’s the full story…

With rhythm and rhyme being a key feature of picturebooks, there’s an interesting synergy between children’s books and music. So it seemed only natural to me to explore collaborations between Seven Stories and Music at Newcastle University. Meeting with Jane Nolan, Teaching Fellow in Enterprise in the School of Arts and Cultures, her Music Enterprise third year module sounded like a perfect way to start working with Music. Jane says: ‘In music and the creative industries, students need to prepare for self-managed, freelance and portfolio careers as well as for employment, and the Music Enterprise module helps students do this through the challenging and authentic experience of creating, organising and delivering a musical event, working in small teams.’

All ready for the percussion workshop. Image: Newcastle University

After discussing the opportunity with Seven Stories’ Programming team, I delivered a short presentation to the Music Enterprise cohort back in October to tell them a bit more about Seven Stories, the sort of event we would be interested in, and the spaces available. And I was really pleased when a group approached me a couple of weeks later!

Amy, Lucy, Aimee-Beth and Gina were interested in hosting their event at Seven Stories because ‘we knew that they would be really supportive of our event’ (Lucy), ‘it allowed for our event to be different from typical gig nights’ (Amy) and ‘the rooms were perfect for the workshops and the final performance’ (Gina) that the group were planning.

The group came to Seven Stories to pitch their event to us before Christmas. They proposed running vocal and percussion workshops on the theme of bugs and insects. Aimee-Beth says: ‘Creepy crawlies tied in with Seven Stories’ insect theme for spring.’ Lucy adds: ‘It also meant we had a really good choice of children’s books to work with.’ It sounded really interesting, so Seven Stories gave them approval to go ahead…

The students used picturebooks as the inspiration for their workshops. Image: Newcastle University

Following that meeting, the group developed their workshops, planned logistics for the event and organised communications to promote Musical Creepy Crawlies. Jane says of this process: ‘Students’ reflections and feedback confirm that the experience of organising and presenting a musical event during the module enhances skills and confidence, personal resilience and professional development, and can also add to their CVs.’

On Sunday 5th March 2017, Amy, Lucy, Aimee-Beth and Gina delivered their event. Amy says: ‘I felt like overall the event ran well, even though I was a bit nervous on the day. But we had great support from Seven Stories which was a massive help.’

Preparing for the Musical Creepy Crawlies vocal workshop. Image: Newcastle University

What did participants think? ‘From the parents’ feedback, it seemed like everyone who attended really enjoyed it,’ says Aimee-Beth. And the parents themselves told us that ‘it was very good for all young children – ours is 6 is and it was good for her age range – but little ones were enjoying it too!’ Another parent commented: ‘thank you – my son loves creepy crawlies so good topic!’

And what did the students learn from the experience? Gina and Aimee-Beth reflected on having to ‘make on the spot decisions’ as the event progressed; ‘no amount of organisation / preparation can leave you totally equipped for things.’ And Lucy and Amy both commented on ‘the importance of communication – I think this is one of of the most vital components of running a successful event and working in a team.’

The children deliver their final Musical Creepy Crawlies performance. Image: Newcastle University

Lorna Duncanson, Seven Stories’ Programming Co-ordinator, said: ‘It was lovely to have such fun and accessible musical workshops at Seven Stories!’ And from Jane’s perspective, ‘the Musical Creepy Crawlies team put a huge amount of thought, imagination and hard work into their workshop, which was clearly very much enjoyed by the children and well received by the parents. Congratulations to the team on a great event!’

The Seven Stories Knowledge Transfer Partnership

From October 2015 to December 2016, Seven Stories: The National Centre for Children’s Books and Newcastle University collaborated on an innovative Knowledge Transfer Partnership, or KTP, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. The Seven Stories KTP is believed to be the first English Literature KTP in the UK!

InnovateUK’s KTP scheme helps businesses to develop and grow by linking them with a university. The aim of our KTP was to help Seven Stories develop a research-led approach to their exhibitions and collections, and enable them to attract adult audiences.

Dr Jessica Medhurst, our KTP Research Associate, was embedded within Seven Stories’ Collections and Exhibitions team during the 15 months of the project, supervised by Collections Director Sarah Lawrance and Dr Anne Whitehead (PI) and Dr Lucy Pearson (Co-I) from Newcastle University’s School of English Literature, Language and Linguistics.

The KTP has had some really interesting and tangible outcomes for Seven Stories. And, by establishing research pathways into Seven Stories’ amazing children’s literature archive and evidencing the benefits of collaboration for both organisations, it’s informing our understanding about how the Vital North Partnership could work in the future.

Here’s a visual summary of the project:

Explore the AHRC’s image gallery for Michael Morpurgo: A Lifetime in Stories, read our KTP case study on the Culture Forum North website, or find out more about Knowledge Transfer Partnerships at Newcastle University.

The Vital North Partnership Pecha Kucha

New year, new blog post. And for my first post of 2017, I thought I’d bring you something a little different – a video! Here it is:

The Vital North Partnership (+19 other ways Newcastle University and Seven Stories are collaborating)

In 2016, I presented this Pecha Kucha about the Vital North Partnership between Newcastle University and Seven Stories: The National Centre for Children’s Books at two events; the Arts and Humanities Research Council’s Common Ground event in June, and Newcastle University’s Working Together: Bringing About Change event in November. Both events explored collaborations and engagement in the humanities.

Pecha Kuchas are short, visual presentations. As you talk, you show 20 images, each for 20 seconds. Your slides change automatically. And they’re more than a little tricky to deliver…

The Vital North Partnership (+ 19 other ways Newcastle University and Seven Stories are collaborating) is exactly what the title suggests: a presentation about 20 current Partnership projects. And what are those projects? Well, watch the video and find out!

With thanks to Jeff Wilson from the School of English Literature, Language and Linguistics, who produced this video.

Discovering home, heritage and history at Seven Stories

In this guest post, Dr Lucy Pearson, Lecturer in Children’s Literature at Newcastle University’s School of English Literature, Language and Linguistics and Gavin Hetherington, a BA English Literature with Creative Writing student, reflect on the third year students’ visit to Seven Stories: The National Centre for Children’s Books in October.

Dr Lucy Pearson

My third-year module ‘Home, Heritage, History’ asks students to think about these three themes in the children’s books of the twentieth century, and to think about how English Literature might use archives and museums. This module evolved from my close working relationship with Seven Stories – I’m taking full advantage of having a heritage organisation devoted exclusively to children’s literature right on our doorstep! One of the highlights of my teaching year is the module field trip to Seven Stories, and this year’s trip was extra special.

The team at Seven Stories stayed on after hours to give my students exclusive access to the Seven Stories Visitor Centre in the Ouseburn Valley. The Collections Team brought along some archive material for students to have a closer look at: we explored some of Helen Craig’s original artwork for Angelina Ballerina, looked at some of Robert Westall’s correspondence and his manuscript drafts of The Machine Gunners, and investigated the creation of Tom’s Midnight Garden and The Borrowers through correspondence, artwork, and drafts. Mary Norton’s letter to her illustrator Diana Stanley in which she writes about the horror of the blank page when starting a new work struck a chord with us all! It’s a special feeling to handle the original material and see authors’ false starts, crossings out and uncertainties.

Dr Jessica Medhurst gave the students a guided tour. Image: Newcastle University

Students also had a chance to explore the galleries and think about how Seven Stories shares our heritage of children’s literature with the public. This was especially exciting this year because our KTP Research Associate Jessica Medhurst came along to give students a tour of Michael Morpurgo: A Lifetime in Stories and talk about the ideas behind the exhibition. Jessica has been working closely with the Seven Stories exhibitions team and conducting research to support their development of the exhibition, so she knows everything there is to know about the Morpurgo exhibition. The exhibition theme of storytelling was especially interesting to members of the group who are also creative writers: student Gavin Hetherington gives his account below.

In the Rhyme Around the World exhibition, Storycatcher Lawrence gave students a taste of the experience regular visitors to Seven Stories can enjoy – and they had some fun exploring the interactive aspects of the exhibition!

Interacting with the exhibitions. Image: Newcastle University

We finished the evening with a quiz, where students showed an expert knowledge of children’s books (and a healthy competitive streak!)

If you’re envious of the students’ exclusive access to Seven Stories, it’s not too late to sign up for our Being Human event on 24th November, which will offer all the fun the students enjoyed plus a little bit more.

Gavin Hetherington

As a creative writer, visiting Seven Stories was not only educational, but also inspirational. The biggest part of this children’s literature archive is that they have acquired original materials from iconic authors in order to preserve and protect them from being shipped elsewhere. In doing so, this material is available to be admired, ensuring that visitors can always walk away with something from the experience.

Students exploring the Michael Morpurgo exhibition. Image: Newcastle University

To go from Michael Morpurgo’s ‘Dreamtime’ in his exhibition, to the ‘Cabinet of Curiosities’ – a short walk away – shows how deeply connected every part of his writing process is, from his creative ideas whilst walking through the pastoral, to the illustrators that have collaborated on his work, boasting watercolour paintings that reflect some part of his stories. We are submerged in his mind and are able to interact with the pieces that make up his imagination, and it spills over into the visitors’ reality. Morpurgo himself, in a very cosy setting of a shed and a recording of the famed author speaking directly to us, said that we should ‘fill our heads with this world of which you are a part’ and that, for us creative writers, it is not ‘magic’ that conjured the words we seek to write, but ourselves, as we write the story we truly believe in, from our minds to the paper before us.

I could not help but be fascinated as Morpurgo himself comes to life, as do the other writers who have created such timeless children’s stories, with the manuscript of The Borrowers and the facsimile of Tom’s Midnight Garden. These personal objects reveal the process of their writing, that the finished product we all cherish began in a way that the creative writer can relate, and thus helps us to aspire to be like them. The exhibits in Seven Stories humanises the writers, shows us the processes of their hard work and how they each used their own modes of magic to bring their stories to life.