All reports originally written by Aimhigher practitioners for the Peninsula Newsletter
Award for Aimhigher project film 2008
A short film made as part of one of last year’s Aimhigher, Dartington widening participation projects has gone on to receive critical acclaim. Katarzyna Hadley won ‘Best Actress’ at Milan Deaf Film Festival for her part in the short film ‘Over The Bridge’.
David Ellington accepted the metallic bronze (8.2kg!) award on Kasia’s behalf. David, who is himself deaf, directed the film and is an inspiring role model to all those who worked on the project. Kasia, a Dartington College of Arts theatre student, worked collaboratively with students from her old college Exeter Royal Academy for Deaf Education.
The resulting film explored an emerging relationship between a hearing man and a deaf woman.
Congratulations to Kasia and everyone who worked on the project.
Claymation 2007
Claymation was a collaboration between Creative Steps and Plymouth College of Art and Design. Eleven year 7 students met every Thursday afternoon for ten weeks.
They each made a short film, exploring different techniques and subjects. Students also made a ceramic head and a portfolio. As with all projects the success is dependant on those working directly with the young people. Carmen Bowers did an extremely good job enthusing the students by giving them the skills to create clay work of a high standard. Richard Abbott and Charlie Skentelbery, ambassadors from PCAD, have shown real commitment and creative flair in their approach to teaching animation techniques. The ambassadors have built up a great rapport with the students, and are even in discussion with some of them about ideas they have for future films. Another strength of the project was the work done at Big Arts Day in Plymouth. Year 7 Lipson students were given the opportunity to teach primary school children the skills they had been developing throughout the project. The achievements of everyone involved will be celebrated on Thursday 8th June at a private viewing, including an exhibition of the clay heads and a screening of the animated films produced. Next year Creative Steps at Dartington hopes to build on this work, giving more opportunities for young people involved in our projects the chance to pass on their new learning to others.
The AdvAnce Project
This groundbreaking project aims to identify the causes behind, and in turn help reverse, the low participation of Advanced Apprenticeship graduates within Higher Education by combining the strong partnership based aspiration-raising work of Aimhigher with the influence and funding power of the LSC.
Aims
- establish precise numbers of Apprentices at level 3 who are graduating over a three year period between 2007 and 2009;
- confirm what proportion of Apprentices at level 3 from the sector priority areas of Care, Construction, Engineering, Hospitality, Travel/Tourism both aspire to and actually go onto HE courses;
- collect, analyse and report on data about the progression history of Foundation Degree and other HE vocational students within the Care,
- Construction, Engineering, Hospitality and Travel/Tourism sectors.
- Develop and embed effective data collection procedures both within the Apprenticeship programmes and HE provider institutions which will inform future decision making.
AdvAnce project has been a real success. It is run by Strand 7 and funded by the LSC to look at progression to HE of advanced apprentices. There has been some excellent HE focus group feedback and evidence that more Advance Apprentices (AA) progress onto HE than previously thought - for example 4 AA students enrolled on a City College Plymouth HE programme in Sept 07. A real success has been the very illuminating progression data from graduating Advanced Apprentices who are asked whether they wish to take on higher learning in the next 6 months and 3 years. We are still awaiting the final data for 2007-8 but what is clear is that there has been a culture shift within the mindset of both training providers and apprentices alike with both groups being much more focused and positive about progression. For example the data so far has shown that 45% of AA graduates want to progress onto higher learning and highlights that many AAs are ambitious and want to carry on learning beyond the framework. The challenge though is that, although they are keen to progress, the majority of AA graduates want to continue working full time.
The LSC have been delighted with strand 7's work; John Peart, Manager for Devon Partnerships for the LSC stating in a recent meeting that " the Advance project had fulfilled all the criteria in the contract and more – it has been the best value for this amount of LSC money by far.” He thanked the Co-ordinator, Kate Poole, for her drive and enthusiasm to keep the project on track and thanked all involved in the project for their dedication. John also stated that with all the changes nationally with apprentices 14 upwards AdvAnce is on the edge of something big and we need to inform and report on the project to key people nationally"
For more information about AdvAnce please contact Kate Poole on 01209 617753 or kate.poole@cornwall.ac.uk
