Vital North Partnership

Staring into Space with Lauren Child, Children’s Laureate

It’s the start of the new academic year, and Newcastle University and Seven Stories: The National Centre for Children’s Books have a fantastic line-up of joint events this autumn. Including – next week – a free evening event with none other than the Children’s Laureate, Lauren Child!

What do you think about, when you think about nothing? That’s the question posed by Lauren Child MBE, the UK’s Children’s Laureate, in last year’s BookTrust annual lecture. Seven Stories’ staff and Newcastle University students and academics attended this event – you can read a review by Agnès Guyon on the Children’s Literature in Newcastle blog – and we just had to invite Lauren to Newcastle to share her views about creativity and education with us.

Lauren is an award-winning artist and writer. She’s the creator of much-loved characters including Charlie and Lola, Clarice Bean, Hubert Horatio and Ruby Redfort. And in 2017, she became Children’s Laureate, recognising her innovative work in raising the profile of illustration as an artform, her role in translating books into other media, and her advocacy for visual literacy and creativity.

The UK Children’s Laureate role is sponsored by Waterstones and co-ordinated by BookTrust, and recognises ‘an eminent writer or illustrator of children’s books to celebrate outstanding achievement in their field’. It was established in 1999, and recent Laureates have included Chris Riddell, Malorie Blackman and Julia Donaldson. All of the Children’s Laureates champion children’s books and the power of reading.

Through her laureateship Lauren is highlighting the importance of creativity, and she’ll be focussing on this in her talk in Newcastle, Staring into Space with Lauren Child:

“It is now widely recognised that creativity is as important as literacy or numeracy, and that allowing ourselves the time, space and freedom to be creative is essential for good mental health…sometimes we need to stare into space.” Lauren Child

Pictured at Hull City Hall is the presentation of the new Tenth Waterstones Children's Laureate. Shown is Lauren Child, the new laureate and the medal she has been awarded. Pictures copyright Darren Casey / DCimaging — Lauren Child, the Waterstone’s Children’s Laureate, wearing the laureate’s medal. Pictures copyright Darren Casey / DCimaging

The lecture will take place on Tuesday 23rd October 2018, 5.30 – 6.45pm in the Curtis Auditorium, Herschel Building, Newcastle University. Staring into Space with Lauren Child is part of the free Insights public lecture series at Newcastle University, in partnership with Seven Stories: The National Centre for Children’s Books and BookTrust. Do join us for this fascinating event!

And, Lauren will be doing an exclusive Q&A on the Newcastle University Facebook page before the lecture. If you have any questions for Lauren, please post them in the comments section below!

Full details of this event are available on the Seven Stories website. And do take a look at our other partnership events this October – including Sea Creatures with Newcastle University’s Marine Sciences at Seven Stories (21st October) and Storytelling and Secret Tunnels, part of the Manchester Science Festival (20th October). We hope to see you there!

Children in the Archive and the City: Collaborative Practice with Seven Stories

Have you ever considered how the design of spaces can help children learn and explore? In this blog post, Daniel Goodricke provides an overview of the research project, ‘Children in the Archive and the City: Collaborative Practice with Seven Stories’.

The project takes the form of a collaborative, creative practice-based PhD between the School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape at Newcastle University and Seven Stories: The National Centre for Children’s Books, and forms part of the Vital North Partnership.

The project investigates how children interact with museum, archive and reading spaces, as well as the broader context of the city, and explores how spaces could be reimagined with and for children and young people. The investigation aims to:

identify changes that can be made to the Seven Stories’ spaces to bring children’s books to a broader demographic
develop and test a series of possible design scenarios and alternative configurations of museum, archive and reading spaces to further encourage children and young people to interact with Seven Stories’ Collection
propose changes that can be made to both physical and digital spaces in order to bring maximum benefit to people of the North East, as well as national and international stakeholders.

Reading sill in the Story Station, Level 4 of Seven Stories’ Visitor Centre. Image source: Daniel Goodricke.

As an architect and educator, I was motivated to undertake this research project following my experience as part of multi-disciplinary teams responsible for the design and delivery of centrally-funded secondary school projects as part of the Building Schools for the Future (BSF) and Priority Schools Building Programme (PSBP). Whilst the programmes were commendably ambitious; tasking school governors, principals, staff, local communities and, even, the pupils themselves with developing an ‘educational vision’, the projects often soon reverted to more normative and routine production modes.

Acknowledging end users as experts in their own experience, this project positions children and young people at the centre of the design process by means of a series of co-design workshops. Employing creative research tools, such as body mapping, illustrated writing and sensory collage, each workshop endeavours to gain a better understanding of children and young people’s current experiences of Seven Stories spaces across a range of scales including their interactions with books, ‘nooks and crannies’, archive, building, and the city. The Finnish-born American architect, Eliel Saarinen (1873-1950) admonished designers to:

“[a]lways consider a thing by considering it in its next larger context – a chair in a room, a room in a house, a house in an environment, an environment in a city plan.”

Creative workshop as part of the Sensory Spaces event. Image source: Seven Stories: The National Centre for Children’s Books.

The workshops, supported by continued creative dialogue, will also begin to articulate the goals, priorities and values of stakeholders, providing participants with a direct involvement in the decision making of architectural proposals. In respect of the latter, I recently attended a series of three linked seminars on the theme of Architecture and Education – specifically how architecture may be used to express educational aims and values – held at the Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge. I hope to elaborate on some of the presented ideas with reference to my project in a subsequent blog post.

Professor Sir Christopher Frayling’s highly influential paper, Research in Art and Design (1993), categorised the varying relationships between research and design (or, architecture) as constituting one of either, ‘into’, ‘for’ or ‘through’ the discipline. This project adopts a ‘through’ approach as it utilises the design process as a methodology in order to undertake the research investigation itself. Such as approach also provides participants, particularly children and young people (given how little emphasis is placed on architecture within the National curriculum), with a relatively unique experience, knowledge and understanding of architecture and the built environment around them, as well as the skills and confidence to become involved in debates surrounding it within their own communities. The Ouseburn Trust, including the now amalgamated Ouseburn Futures, have long engaged residents, workers and visitors to the Valley in influencing what happens there and shaping the regeneration process.

Seven Stories Visitor Centre is located at the heart of the Lower Ouseburn Valley. Image source: Seven Stories: The National Centre for Children’s Books, photographed by Damien Wootten.

The findings of the project will culminate in the production of a design brief, developed through the close dialogue with representatives of Seven Stories, end users, neighbouring communities and other stakeholders. The brief will assist in articulating Seven Stories’ capital ambition of a new permanent and accessible home in Newcastle, as it aims to establish itself as an international centre of excellence for children’s literature, by defining the scope and outlining the deliverables of any future capital development project.

The project is funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council‘s National Productivity Investment Fund and is supervised by Professor Prue Chiles, Professor Adam Sharr and Professor Matthew Grenby, whose collective expertise include the design of learning spaces, architectural phenomenology and children’s literature.

To follow the progress of the project, including research findings and workshop outcomes, please revisit the Vital North Partnership blog from time-to-time, or follow us on social media at @reimagining7s (Twitter) and reimagining7s (Instagram). If you’re interested in taking part in the research, please feel free to contact Daniel at daniel.goodricke@newcastle.ac.uk or daniel.goodricke@sevenstories.org.uk.

Q&A: Museum Studies MA placements at Seven Stories

This year, Newcastle University Museums Studies MA students Amy and Anna undertook placements with Seven Stories: The National Centre for Children’s Books. Hear about how they found their placement experience in this post…

Hi Anna and Amy! Please introduce yourselves.

Hello! I’m Anna and I live in Gateshead, although I am originally from Northumberland. I came to the Museum Studies MA course with the aim of beginning a career in the museums sector, alongside developing my practice as an illustrator.

Hi, I’m Amy and I’m originally from County Durham. I moved to Newcastle 5 years ago when I got my place at Newcastle University to do my Ancient History BA. I decided to do the MA with the intention of (hopefully) being able to get a job in museum learning after. And after all there’s no better place for history than in a museum!

Newcastle is home to many museums and attractions, including the Baltic art gallery and the Sage Gateshead. Image: Newcastle University, photography by Chris Bishop

Tell me about the Museums Studies MA course – how are you finding studying at Newcastle?

Amy: I’m loving it! I couldn’t think of a city more suited to a Museum Studies course than Newcastle – there are so many museums and galleries on your doorstep you’re spoilt for choice. I love Newcastle and can’t imagine leaving!

Anna: I could not have asked for a better experience, in all honesty. The course at Newcastle has a great reputation and as I was keen to stay in the North East to help contribute towards the growing arts industry here, it was the perfect choice.

What attracted you to do a placement at Seven Stories?

Anna: What didn’t attract me! Having specialised in creating illustrated books during my undergraduate degree, I have had an interest in the work that goes on at Seven Stories for a while. I previously had some of my illustration work displayed in the visitor centre, which I found very exciting.

Amy: I’m a long-time fan of Seven Stories. I actually came to the opening in 2005 and met Jacqueline Wilson and Nick Sharratt; I LOVED Jacqueline Wilson’s books so Nick Sharratt drawing me my own Tracey Beaker, on the cover of my tattered book, is one of my favourite childhood memories.

St. Wilfrid's Primary School visit Seven Stories. Image: Seven Stories, The National Centre for Children's Books, Image by Richard Kenworthy — St. Wilfrid’s Primary School visit Seven Stories’ Time to Get Up Exhibition. Image: Seven Stories, The National Centre for Children’s Books, Image by Richard Kenworthy

So, what have you been up to on your placements?

Amy: I’ve been based with the Creative Learning and Engagement team and I’ve been able to learn a lot about Seven Stories offerings, both onsite and in schools.

I’ve shadowed EY, KS1 and KS2 workshops as well as spending a couple of days with Creative Associates learning about the Reader in Residence and Reading for Pleasure offerings.

I’ve also being analysing and interpreting data regarding the learning programmes and spotting any trends and patterns.

Anna: I have been primarily based with the Seven Stories Collections team. My main job has been to catalogue the Fritz Wegner collection, which Seven Stories acquired in 2017.

I have had the opportunity to work in the visitor centre on the de-installation of the Comics exhibition, and on the install for the new Where Your Wings Were exhibition. The tasks I was involved with included removing and packing artworks and display items, assisting in the hanging of artworks, and sourcing some images used in the displays.

David Almond's notebooks, part of the Seven Stories Collection. Image: Seven Stories: The National Centre for Children's Books — David Almond’s notebooks, part of the Seven Stories Collection. Image: Seven Stories: The National Centre for Children’s Books

How is your placement helping you to develop the skills you’ll need for a career in the museums sector?

Anna: I came to the MA course at Newcastle University with little practical experience of working in a museum environment. The placement has helped me put my theoretical knowledge from the MA course into practice. Working at Seven Stories has given me access to experts in the industry and enabled me to work directly with the collection.

Amy: I already have experience of delivering workshops and activities so doing my placement at Seven Stories meant that I could work with data, figures and reports to learn first-hand how data interpretation can be used to inform the future progression of a learning programme.

It’s something I normally wouldn’t have had the opportunity to do and I’ve really enjoyed doing something different!

Seven Stories. Image: Seven Stories, The National Centre for Children's Books, photography by Richard Kenworthy — Seven Stories. Image: Seven Stories, The National Centre for Children’s Books, photography by Richard Kenworthy

What have you learned from your placement at Seven Stories?

Amy: I’ve learned so much but my favourite part was learning about how much stories and reading can positively impact a child’s development and ultimately improve their academic performance and confidence.

Anna: I’ve learned that a huge amount of hard work, dedication and love goes into maintaining the collections! Before beginning my placement, I was of the belief that museum roles are well defined and separate from one another. I now know that multitasking and cross-discipline work is becoming a more common way of working.

Is there anything else you’d like to say?

Anna: I would like to thank all of the wonderful staff I have worked with. As an illustrator, it has been an absolute delight to work with original artworks, and it has really inspired me in my own practice.

Amy: I didn’t know it was possible but my time here has made me an even bigger Seven Stories fan!

Thanks Amy and Anna! It’s been a pleasure to work with you both and good luck with the rest of your MA studies!

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!