Emerson Valley School is a 4 form Junior School in Milton Keynes, serving Year 3 – 6 with 460 students on roll. It has just enrolled as an Artsmark School and is interested in ways to incorporate more art into it’s day to day curriculum. Music is an area of strength for the school, but the visual arts are an area for development.

The school would like to work on a wellbeing project to encourage their learners to be resilient and confidence young people, comfortable with expressing themselves. To this end they would like to invite 3 artists into the school to work with a selected group of 45 mixed aged young people on a carousel of creative activities early in the Autumn Term 2017.

The focus will be on enabling young people to express, enjoy and be themselves. Sessions will take place on Monday 25th September and be structured as 3 repeated 80 minute sessions for 15 students at a time: 9am – 10:20am, 10:45am – 12:05pm, 1:30pm – 2:50pm.

The school are open to a wide range of art forms, but are particularly interested in visual arts. School staff will be in attendance to help supervise the day and also to learn from the practitioners. The budget for the day is £200 per practitioner inclusive of VAT, prep, travel and materials.

Final selection will be made by a panel of young people at Emerson Valley School, so your expressions of interest should be aimed at a young audience. Please send a young-person friendly outline of your idea for your workshop, your costs and room requirements by Friday 28th July to eleanorh@bedfordcreativearts.org.uk. Applicants will be informed of the outcome by Monday 11th September. This opportunity has been funded by the MK Council Culture Vouchers and brokered by The Culture Challenge MK in partnership with Arts Gateway MK.

Photograph by Cat Lane of Jo Atherton‘s Fossils of the Future Workshop