40 Year 10 students from local schools have successfully completed LEAN’s Group Work Experience as a taster of careers in the Creative Industries. This weeklong collaborative model has been developed to address some of the challenges faced by smaller arts organisation in offering work experience to this age group.
LEAN’s Group Work Experience Week: Careers in the Theatre Industry
Hosted at the Albany in Deptford, a group of 20 Year 10 students from Deptford Green and Addey & Stanhope Schools enjoyed a week of activities and taster talks from industry professionals, including programming, marketing, finance, fundraising and operations managers. There was a trip and backstage tour of Broadway Theatre Catford and workshops with LAMDA & Teatro Vivo. Throughout the week small groups were tasked with planning all aspects of their own arts festival. On the final day they confidently pitched highly creative and well-thought-out festival concepts to their fellow students from the Cockpit programme and got feedback from a panel of industry experts.
Rebecca Carter, Senior Participation Producer at the Albany said: ‘These are great ideas: I can see us putting on some of these events here’.
It was hard work over the week, but students were delighted with their achievement at the end, all reporting an increase in their confidence, teamworking and communication skills.
LEAN’s Group Work Experience Week: Careers in the Visual Arts & Crafts Industry
Hosted at Cockpit Deptford, a group of 15 years 10 students from Deptford Green and Addey & Stanhope Schools enjoyed a week of activities and taster talks from industry professionals, including a craft workshop with Cockpit Studio makers and a visit to Goldsmiths CCA to understands how a contemporary art gallery works. Throughout the week students worked to create their own exhibitions, selecting a range of artworks including woven textiles and ceramics kindly on loan from Cockpit makers, to be featured in their Upcoming Open Studios Weekend. Small groups organised themselves to look after the different aspects of putting an exhibition together – curating, marketing, operations, fundraising and engagement – how would they make the show accessible to young people like themselves? The teams devised a range of publicity, interpretation and engagement activities (creating a paper weaving activity).
On the final day the Operations team skilfully guided adult VIPs (industry experts) and their peers from the Albany-based group through the exhibitions and activities.
Both the students and their parents are proud of their achievements. A parent emailed us to say, “Thank you for giving him a lovely week, he had spoken highly of his time there.”
This programme follows on from LEANS Work Experience Programme 2023-24. It extends the partnership model whereby multiple organisations contribute to an overall programme which is organised and led by skilled youth facilitators. We plan to do a full evaluation on this process to identify the essential elements and the challenges for effective collaboration . This will support similar use of this model within other arts organisations in Lewisham . The report will be published in the Autumn but in the meantime full details of last years project evaluation are available here Army of Creatives 2024 Final Report – LEAN
Many thanks to our partner organisations:
The Albany, Cockpit Deptford, The Broadway Catford, Teatro Vivo, LAMDA, Goldsmiths CCA, Deptford Green School, Addey & Stanhope School
and to our funders:
Arts Council England, The Deptford Challenge Fund and D’Oyly Carte Charitable Trust
for their support.
