Bradford Children's Project - Connecting With Our City

In April 2007 three early years teachers, a creative agent the Creative Partnerships programme manager and three practitioners: a dancer, film maker and a visual artist participated in an international study week in Reggio Emilia. The aim of the week was to explore the significance of the Reggio approach to early years education in relation to the Creative Partnerships practice and projects.

Background

The pre-school system in Reggio Emilia had evolved in response to a very particular socio-political situation in Northern Italy and the commitment and imagination of a community to provide their children with the best possible early years experience. The Reggio schools have provided inspiration for educationalists around the world for many years and the international centre is a fantastic resource - a place for dialogue and shared exploration, a place to ask ‘what is our image of the child and how does this impact on everything we do'.

The Project

When we returned from Reggio we discussed how the Reggio practice and approach could be applied to the Creative Partnerships programme beyond the nursery cluster, the network of seven nursery schools and children's centres with whom we were working.

As a group we discussed how could we use what we had seen and learnt at Reggio about early years education in Bradford. Initial discussions included everyone that attended the study week and we also invited Museums, Galleries and Heritage and Beckfoot Secondary school.

The discussions were interesting and rich as it was unusual to have nursery, primary and secondary schools teachers together in one room with the opportunity to discuss teaching and education in the context of such a wide age range.

From our conversations came the idea of, how can we explore the relationship of young people and Bradford. Can the city reflect / include / hear / respond to the 100 Languages of Children? We developed an idea of a cross-phase project involving, Canterbury Children's Centre, Our Lady of Victories' Primary School and Beckfoot Secondary school. The idea for the project was inspired by the close relationship the children of Reggio have with their city and people in conjunction with our discussions and our discussion and conversations about cross phase working. The idea that developed was how to explore the city of Bradford through the children's eyes, their learning and ideas documented and facilitated by the adults. The documentation would be used to promote the children's (as citizens) involvement in the future of the city.

We planned the project and outlined the following objectives, bearing in mind, that if we followed the true Reggio way of working there would be no ‘definite outcomes' as the project would be ‘child led'.

Aims:

• Spreading a strong idea of childhood, of the rights, potentials, and resources of childhood still so often unacknowledged or avoided.
• Promoting study, research, and experimentation around the themes of education giving priority to active, constructive and creative learning by children.
• Defining more advanced professionalism and culture for teachers and those operating in childhood and family services.
• Highlighting the value of research, observation, documentation, interpretation of the children's processes of action and thought; encouraging the value of documentation of children's and teachers work using all the techniques of multimedia especially the processes in the formation of ideas, hypotheses and theories by children while engaged in various areas of knowledge and experience.

• To create an opportunity for children and young people to explore their relationship to the city centre
• To enable those that visited Reggio to apply their learning
• To promote the benefits to learners, teachers and practitioners of working across phases without a curriculum
• To promote and make visible Reggio inspired practice as valid and productive form of education

Context of the project

The project began in the Studio Space at Impressions Gallery, a fantastic space to view Bradford and people watch. The gallery is a great place, but they had not anticipated small children using it and we spent some time adapting it for their use. The group consisted of five children from Canterbury Children's Centre, three Year 5 children from Our Lady of Victories' and six girls from Year 10 from Beckfoot and the practitioners from Reggio. The project was a pilot launched in April 2008, we planned four delivery sessions and four reflective/evaluation sessions. The plan was to explore the city one week and evaluate and discuss the outcomes the following week, based on our reflections/observations and adapt the project accordingly. The project was an experiment and intended as a ‘taster' as we had no idea what the outcomes would be. Our inspiration was the educators from Reggio and "through their research and on-going evaluation, they have learnt how to explore ideas in theory and practise. Most of all they have learned from the children. They focussed on listening to children's theories, observing how children represent their understandings of the world and discovering how they support their explorations." Refocus UK Reggio Network.

Reggio has taken forty years to develop this approach and they are still developing their approach, we were trying to capture some of Reggio philosophy and process in eight weeks!

Documentation

Whilst at Reggio, it was very clear that documentation was a very rich learning resource. At the very beginning of the project we knew that this was essential, all the sessions were filmed, photographed and notes were taken at each one, sketch books were used and audio recordings. At the end of the project we conducted evaluative interviews with the secondary school students. We now have a film and photographs that capture the project and we are in the process of collating a case study.


Overview of the sessions

The first session was ‘a getting to know' you session and an introduction to the project. The gallery and exhibitions were explored and we did cut-outs of each other on large pieces of cardboard and displayed them in the gallery windows. The following sessions we spent time in small groups exploring the city, this included going to the Media Museum / Ice Rink / Shopping Centre / tourist information / the top of car parks / lifts. One exercise was just following one person and shadowing their movements, looking where they looked and seeing things in the city that the group had never observed before. The Beckfoot girls devised and led many of the activities and they showed us their favourite places in Bradford. We created a giant map of the city, with everyone taking park and drawing what we had seen. The final session was action packed, with breakfast at City Hall, followed by a guided tour of City Hall and then the Midland Hotel. Every time we went into the city we saw something we had never seen before - whether the ‘animal benches' the nursery children found or ornate stone work on the tops of the buildings.

Summary of the project

The project was challenging for all parties. Mixing the age groups was interesting and initially quite daunting for the older girls. Once the students had bonded the small mixed groups worked really well. All parties benefited and learnt something from working with each other - although sometimes it was only on reflection the older students realised they were learning.

For the practitioners, it was challenging as the project was ‘child led' which meant we didn't always achieve what was intended which could be frustrating for the older students who are used to having very structured lessons with clearly defined learning objectives.

The project was a pilot and on a practical level we realised it wasn't realistic to take secondary school students out of school due to their exam timetable and with hindsight if the project was to continue, it would make sense to have it outside of school time or aligned to the secondary curriculum / maybe PHSCE or learning to learn courses, it would also make a good model for school's extended service provision.

As a concept for a long term project for children of all ages to interact with their city and vice versa, then the idea is definitely one Bradford City (any City) should embrace and celebrate, as many positive comments about the city came from the project. There are also many things the city can do to make if more accommodating for young people. We are hoping that this project is the beginning for future projects and consultations. We hope to gain some support from the city to pursue the project in more depth and develop a closer relationship for the children of Bradford with their city. Another idea we would like to develop is a group of young ambassadors and a constituted group ‘Bradford Children' to promote and build upon the city's diverse creative work with children.

Unexpected Outcomes

One of the many benefits of the project was the unexpected outcomes - which are still been talked about today by the students and project team:

• As a spin-off from the Bradford Children project Beckfoot students Louise and Pooja worked with Education Officer Tracey Uren and filmmaker Rad Miller to create a video called ‘Bradford - it's our home' which was short listed for the Diversity Day competition and they went to Vienna for the final.
• We were invited to present to the Champions for Children's Board and Louise, one of the Beckfoot students presented to the board.
• Faye from OLV became accomplished at film and audio recording and the school is looking at developing a film project.
• For the Beckfoot girls it made them think about how they learnt and they found they were educating themselves and their views were listened to.
• Some of the children had never been to the Media Museum and wanted to go back. They had never seen a hotel room before or been in a hotel, these were great new experiences.
• All the students felt in control and empowered as they could film, record, document, lead, draw, speak, explore all in a safe and exciting environment.
• The relationships that developed between the groups were rewarding and when they see each other again, it's like they're old friends.
• Breakfast with everyone at City Hall on the last day was great, as everyone felt comfortable and for some another new experience was having croissants.
• Faye (from OLV) and Louise (from Beckfoot) were asked to participate in another film making day with two of the practitioners.
• The children still talk about the project and having shared their experiences with their parents they too see Bradford differently.

• We were learning things for ourselves
• Its not about facts, its about looking at things differently
• We were educating ourselves, different way of learning
• We could express our views