Modern technology, Glow and good old-fashioned writing and drawing skills were a perfect combination to record the goings-on at one school’s nesting box, reports an article in the TES this week.
Read the full article here.
Creativity at SLF 2011
There are just four weeks left to book your free place at this year’s Scottish Learning Festival and a quick search under Creativity shows you there is plenty of innovation and inspiration to take advantage of.
There are 25 seminars and 1 keynote speaker who make direct use of creativity in their work.
Sir John Jones has a reputation for straight talking, leadership and creativity and in his keynote entitled The Future Is Not What It Was he will argue that ‘Unless we are prepared to embrace change and champion innovation and creativity we may miss a huge opportunity to help create a world in which every child really does matter and none is left behind.’
You can register for SLF 2011 at the SLF website.
Research: Increasing the engagement of young people in positive activities
In depth research was undertaken to investigate the benefits and barriers to young people engaging with positive out of school activities. There are several key messages to take away including:
- three quarters of young people engage in some form of activity but for lower income and rural young people this dips to less than half.
- barriers to engagement include poor access to information and parental attitudes.
- proven benefits include better relationships with adults and particularly teachers and parents which can be transferred to in-school activities.
- effective strategies for engagement include communicating specific benefits rather than the generic benefit of participation being a ‘good thing’.
You can find the pdf of the research document here:
New Argyll & Bute Writing Competition
We would like to invite primary pupils in Argyll & Bute to take part in a writing competition using the Argyll Collection as inspiration.
Prizes are donated by Scottish Book Trust:
1st prize: 5 books
2nd prize: 3 hardback books
3rd prize: 3 books
£250 worth of books for the winning pupil’s primary school – a selection of picture books, non-fiction, fiction, poetry and plays suitable for second level
Winning pieces will be posted online as part of this website.
Who is the competition for?
The competition is open to all primary schools within Argyll & Bute. Entries are invited from second level pupils.
Young Filmmakers Competition – deadline this Friday
Berwick Film & Media Arts Festival is a spectacular celebration of the art
of the moving image, and the largest film festival in the North East and
Scottish Borders, located in the border town of Berwick upon Tweed.
The Festival is set to return for a 7th time, Friday 23 ¬- Sunday 25
September 2011, spilling out of the Maltings Theatre and into various unique
architectural locations across the town during one action-packed weekend.
The Festival is now seeking submissions of short films and moving image
works made by young people under 19 to compete for the Chris Anderson Award
and a cash prize. The winning film will also be screened at the Leeds Young
People’s Film Festival ¬ one of the biggest film festivals in the UK for
young people. This competition commemorates the life of Chris Anderson who
was an active supporter of both the Festival and young filmmaking.
The Chris Anderson Award was launched in 2007 to encourage young people
involved in filmmaking and to identify promising new talent across the North
East and Scottish Borders. The award offers a cash prize which has kindly
been donated by the family of Chris Anderson – his widow Chrissie Anderson,
and his son Paul WS Anderson, director of Resident Evil and Alien Vs
Predator.
Selected films for the competition will be screened at The Maltings Theatre
on Saturday 24th September.
A young programming committee from the Festival Film Club at Berwick Youth
Project will select the programme of films that make up the final
competition programme.
“It was great to get selected for and win the Chris Anderson Award and have it screened at Berwick Film & Media Arts Festival. It made me and my friends feel very proud.” Chelsea Feeney (age 18) Beacon Hill Film Project, ‘The Pirate and the Mermaid’ Winning film 2010
“Getting a special mention was cool, it was great to have so many people enjoy my film” Abby Thomson (9) Director of ‘How to Make Friends’ Jury Special Mention 2010
For submission guidelines and entry form go to http://berwickfilm-artsfest.com/chris-anderson-award
Deadline for submissions is Friday 26th August 2011
Funding – health and wellbeing
What will we fund?
We are looking for a range of initiatives that will demonstrate the above. This could include sports and physical health activities, working with local artists to promote positive images of mental health through creative arts, song, music, dance, drama etc., speaking out through training volunteer speakers and media volunteers, social inclusion and community involvement initiatives.
These are only examples and we will consider any initiative that is new and inspiring.
You can view last year’s awards on our website to give you an idea of the range of activities we have funded.
Your group should be a community, voluntary, health or social enterprise organisation. If you have an idea that you think could work in your local area, we want to hear from you. Projects should be led by people with lived experience of mental ill-health or those who provide care and support.
We will fund projects that aim to:
• change public understanding, attitudes and behaviours so that the stigma and discrimination associated with mental ill-health is eliminated.
• enhance the ability of people to challenge stigma and discrimination.
• ensure people with mental health problems and those who support them are valued and included.
Wanted: Films by Young People 1980-2000
This new project, which will run for four years, is funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and runs in collaboration with the Scottish Screen Archive (part of the National Library of Scotland).
A major aspect of the project is to locate amateur video makers active between 1980-2000 and preserve and store some of the videos made during this period. The academic research team, based at the University of Glasgow, will investigate this video material to gain a unique insight into the lives of Scottish children in the twentieth century.
What kinds of video are we looking for?
It is our ambition to view material from a wide demographic of filmmakers (such as ethnic minority groups and different class backgrounds) and from a range of different locations across Scotland (the big cities, rural towns, the Highlands and Islands). The films /videos need not focus on children exclusively: the incidental appearance of children may be just as significant to our research. Please note: by ‘children’, a rule of thumb would be up to school leaving age (around 16).
Material we are hoping to discover:
Community videos produced between 1980 – 2000
Films/videos produced for educational projects, civic initiatives, promotional films for charities, possibly medical/public health films, and films/videos about/made in schools
Work produced by cine and video clubs, originally often screened for limited public exhibition (both fiction or non-fiction)
Films/videos produced by other kinds of community projects, such as drama groups
Work produced by children and others for children’s film festivals, or other public screenings
Material we are not looking for:
Home movies (i.e. films made privately by families) will be a marginal aspect of our research. If the films are unusual in either style or subject matter then we may be interested, but this kind of film will not be one of our main priorities
Schools short film competition – Glasgow’s Coat of Arms
Wee Movies: Competition 2 – TREE
Make a short film inspired by Glasgow’s Coat of Arms and your school’s movie could be shown during the Glasgow Youth Film Festival 2012!
We’re looking for 5-minute short films based on the legend behind the Glasgow city crest – the second theme is Tree, so get creative and get cracking!
Competition 2:
TREE – Deadline Monday 5 September
Reading, Dancing, Crafts and Music – Scotland’s top cultural pastimes
SLAINTE reports that the Scottish Government Household Annual Survey for 2009/10 has confirmed that reading for pleasure is by far the most common cultural activity in 2009/2010 with 62% of adults saying that they have done this in the last year. This is in line with previous years. The next most popular activity is dancing (18%), followed by crafts and playing and writing music (both 11%).
National Poetry Day – 6 October – online resources
The Scottish Poetry Library has some ideas and resources for National Poetry Day on 6 October.
Visit http://www.readingroom.spl.org.uk/poetry_issues/issue_25.htm for directions to:
- pdf posters to download of all 8 poems in this year’s National Poetry Day (Scotland) postcards
- sets of ideas for teaching, reading and writing activities
- booking info on September CPD sessions to make the most of National Poetry Day.
Also the free online magazine, Poetry Issues, provides monthly updates on NPD Scotland poem postcards, info and teaching resources.
