Work Experience Week at Ignite!

We were delighted to have Madina, Sophie and Tiffany from South Notts Academy join us at Ignite! for a week to complete their work experience. They had a busy week attending events, interviewing researchers, and supporting workshops - here are their highlights!

Fashion Fictions Celebration Event

Madina:

We were all part of work experience and took part in the Fashion Fictions Celebration event in Bulwell Riverside which was on for the past few weeks. All three of us met up with the lovely crew of co-ordinators, talented artists and photographers. The library was full of different stations where the children created their own world with fashion designs, containing ideas like: a world where we were all nice to animals, a world where we didn’t use dyes but natural ones. The magnificent pieces were all on display and with 3 different tasks set up.

The first batch of 3 schools came in and Megan welcomed them in warmly with directions and information for the day, afterwards each school presented their ideas to the rest with questions prompted by Megan. Next, all the kids went and explored the rest of the schools’ creative pieces in more detail with the opportunity of snacks and drinks (which may I say were very popular!) Finally, the three of us stood and supported the activities. I was giving out and helping with evaluation forms, one of my colleagues helped the children put their opinion on new ideas for fashion on a grided wall… And at the end, Megan asked them three evaluative questions which were full of positivity such as complementing the other schools!

After a nice lunch the remaining 3 other primary schools arrived and the event was the same, adapted slightly with their own creative pieces. Some interviews were also conducted by the NTU team with some of the artists for later usage. Overall, the day went very well with all three of us agreeing it was great to witness all the creativity in one room with all the potential inspirations!! My main takeaway was how fashion has no definite standards or rules but is like a pot of overflowing ideas and colours! With fashion being anything and everything, especially for kids who are young and their imaginations running beautifully wild.

Tiffany:

I’m so glad to see how children are given opportunities to express themselves in different ways; artwork, survey, presentation etc, allowing them to develop their own personalities and characteristics. We also saw loads of creative artworks through the activity, some of Fashion Fictions creations even include messages such as "embrace yourself" or "don't kill animals", showing that they have developed their own thinking and opinions. Most importantly, these activities are teaching children about the current situation of fast fashion and educating them to be more sustainable, installing correct values to our children and more hope to our future. Their learning progress are shown through the card activity which the children wrote what they have learnt. It was such an incredible experience to work with children and to witness the growth of learning progress of them!

Creative Sparks at St. Ann's Library

Sophie:

After the Fashion Fictions Celebration Event, we headed over to St Ann’s Library where we helped with the Creative Sparks programme from 3:30pm-5pm. The theme was to learn about different animals (lots of the children were animal lovers!) Overall, fourteen children took part in the session and we did lots of interesting activities like crosswords, mix and match, drawing, and printing. The children also had a chance to get hands on and create footprints of different animals through making “stamps” using foam paper and markers, expressing their own ideas, and creating their unique print during the lesson. Though it was slightly messy, we managed to complete the artwork - each and every one of them looked like masterpieces! Throughout Creative Sparks, the children were able to express their own ideas, gaining confidence to speak up as well as enhancing their communication skills. They also developed an extreme sense of pride for their final products, showing it to their parents after class! We then tidied up the room and headed on the bus back to town to end our day. 

This has been truly a fantastic experience and working with children has also evoked me to be more creative with my artwork, being able to express more feelings through it. Being able to see them have the opportunity to do the things they like and practically produce amazing artwork gives an overflowing sense of extreme pride — I am so proud of every one of you! Keep up the good work and you will shine bright in the future no matter what! 

City As Lab Meeting

Madina:

Yesterday, the team went to the new campus of Castle Meadow for University of Nottingham. The event was for business and architecture related talks with the welcoming of the new building. Initially, we were given the opportunity to eat breakfast which was tasty (especially the croissants!) and then a talk to introduce "City as Lab programme" which is collaborative project that connects the universities together and local partners. Afterwards, the guests were divided into three groups which were shown three different areas. I loved the first 20 minutes talk which was about research into how refugees expressed themselves through art and I found it very inspiring and a wonderful idea. Moreover, the art was beautiful which is shown here:

Next, we all were shown creative arts of AI created images for the future and awareness was spread on eating disorders which was very informative. Finally, the very interesting view of a physical map was shown which blew my mind completely with how it was made:

As the day kept on going, I was only but interested and immensely fascinated with all the great information surrounding me!

NTU Children's Graduation

Madina:

Next, we went to an event in Nottingham Trent University for graduation for primary school kids. I had a wonderful and fun time with helping with the activities. Megan showed us all how the different instruments and tasks work which I cannot write in words how impressed I was!! Here are a few of the images:

They all played with the senses such as hearing words from an opposite direction, seeing a hole in your hand (all an illusion!). No matter how young or old the people were the activities amazed them all with their creativity!!

The afternoon finished perfectly with the little ones graduating!!