Posted 14 December 2017

Every classroom has one student (or perhaps more than one) that needs a little “extra attention” or support to help them realise and reach their full potential.  We had the pleasure to work with young people at Mount St Mary’s Catholic High School who needed a creative push to help them get back on track by involving students in a series of creative workshops!

Activities led by Leeds Arts University looked at different forms of animation, where students shared what they knew already about animation, learnt about new approaches and techniques, gained new experiences and were challenged to apply these skills. They did this by developing and directing their own storyboards, creating the narrative and used stop motion animation for the production. Students were in complete control of the whole process, including designing the set, direction and filming, allowing their creativity to run wild!

The workshop showed students how simple and easy it can be to be creative, everyone can do it and you can even do it at home if you wish using a smartphone and materials around your house.

The session helped to form and develop relationships with students from my NCOP group and opened the lines of communication for Higher Education and chats about careers. We spoke about their choices and options about further study upon leaving school next year.

Upon completing the workshop students were laughing, they were pleased with the outcome and generally very happy with how the session went. Both the Assistant Head and Head of Year 10  expressed how well the students were working and how creative they were being.

By Shauni Hetherington, NCOP Progression Officer at Go Higher West Yorkshire