INSPIRE

LV21 was one of 12 Lead Arts Organisations for INSPIRE ‘Leading through Culture’ Project, part of the Kent Schools Olympic Legacy Programme, funded by Kent County Council, Artswork and Royal Opera House Bridge. This ambitious programme involving 130 schools and a key group of arts and cultural organisations from Kent enabled young people to connect with and create arts and culture.

Since autumn 2013 we have been working with over 1500 young people from the age of 3 to 16 across 20 schools in Dartford, Gravesham and Swale. Our ‘Anchors Away!’ project has taken the participants on a journey of exploration and discovery, inspiring and supporting 10 young leaders from each participating school to develop and lead on their own creative projects and engage with culture and education. Working with lead artist Wendy Daws and a number of local professional artists across art forms we have delivered leadership workshops in all participating schools, exploring how leadership can be developed through the arts, mentoring young people, training teachers and sharing skills. Over 200 young leaders visited LV21 for the Big Arts Day – a day of inspiration and celebration bringing all the schools together – followed by tailormade skills workshops in school on their chosen themes and art forms, ranging from arts carousels and mini arts days to devising school anthems, floating graffiti walls and outdoor art capsules.

Through different phases of the project the students have:

• explored what ‘leadership’ can mean for their age group and for them personally, and developed skills to help them enthuse and excite others and share learning.
• proposed creative ways to use the arts to inspire learning in their school.
• worked with students from other settings and phases, developing confidence and a sense of their own potential.
• shared an exciting, inspiring arts experience with other young leaders, teachers and arts organisations.
• learned new art-form skills alongside teachers.

The project has also enabled a number of schools to strengthen Arts Award provision for their students and many are applying to achieve Artsmark status.

The collaboration between LV21, schools and local arts practitioners has established ongoing partnerships based on positive experiences through the programme, leaving a strong legacy of shared skills and engagement in arts.

Young Leaders Comments:

“Thank you for all of the fantastic workshops and inspiration!”

“I loved it on the ship. It was so much fun! Don’t stop doing it.”

“Best day ever! I loved today because I like learning different stuff!”

“This is the most excellent thing I have ever done.”

“I thought the trip was great and it was a great opportunity to be a leader. I felt really happy and would love to do it again.”

“I feel confident and like a leader and would be able to tell my class about being inspired.”

Teachers Comments:

“Thank you so much for yesterday, the children absolutely loved the workshop as you can tell from the photographs. Thank you for sending those over to us, they are gorgeous. Look forward to next steps!!”

“Thanks for inviting us onto your wonderful vessel, I’ve never had a meeting in such an intriguing place before!”

“Great day aboard Light Vessel 21. I took back 10, very excited and inspired children who were still collecting sounds in bottles!”

“I would like to say a big thank you to you for the fantastic day. The children thoroughly enjoyed the workshop, as did we. It was amazing to see the children take the lead, encourage each other and work together. We are very proud of them for the work they did. Your approach to the children certainly brought out the best in them.”

“Thank you, this was a terrific experience for both us and the children.”

“I thought the day was terrific for all the children who attended – and just wish that even more children could have shared the experience. We watched the children’s confidence grow throughout the day – even learning how to tackle the ladders/stairs onboard safely was a boost. The art work was great fun and a real challenge, especially drawing by observation only. The children were quite nervous about making the plaster cast of their fingers – they thought they would be stuck in in the pot! The graffiti art was very popular and is certainly something the children will be able to teach others in school. The hit of the day was Mr E Diot – the children would love him to visit and take them through some drama sessions in school.”

“Day III was a real success, fantastic feedback from all children and staff involved. Overall it was an enjoyable experience for all involved and we are already in talks about planning more workshops in the Summer terms to further develop and extend the Young Leaders’ leadership and management skills. Thanks for providing us with the opportunity to be part of such a fantastic project!”

“Thank you very much for considering our plans and making great alternative arrangements. Seeing as we were late in planning and booking the workshop, I am thrilled that the children’s ideas will be explored in such a useful way. The plan which you have come up with will help us to look into other approaches and further develop the children’s plan for a ‘creative capsule’ area – which I can feed into next years art development plan for our school.”

“Thank you, our children were so grateful of a nice creative day following gruelling SATS week!”

Arts practitioners Comments:

“Today was one of the fastest days of my life. It was really exciting to see so many smiling faces and new visitors to the ship. They genuinely were “Oh my goodness, I can’t believe I’m here” and it’s just lovely to see that. It was exhilarating, the whole day was really inspirational!”

“Brilliant day yesterday. I was really impressed with how much the young leaders had taken on from the day on the ship, and that the things they had picked up had already started filtering into the school. Young David teaching the rest of the students the graff alphabet was a really humbling moment for me, a student only in Year 3 having the confidence to stand up in front of 50 pupils from different years teaching a subject he had only seen once was something really special.”

“…it was a really brave move from you to pass workshop responsibility to the students, but I think they really grew into it. It was a strange, but rewarding experience for me to take a step back and let them work together with the confidence to create some really great artwork.”

“Thank you for an inspiring leadership day yesterday – we’re still buzzing after the amazing day. Well done to the young leaders and also Year 4 for being test pilots, they really helped shape afternoon for the Young Leaders.”

“The leaders were just brilliant – clear, made good decisions, worked things out, reflected, asked great questions, really thought about their roles, problem solved!”

“Thank you for the kind welcome and all your support on the day. We really enjoyed working with you and the children and were amazed by the Young Leaders creativity, leadership skills and confidence in running the activities for other children. Great future leaders every one of them!”