Culture on the Doorstep & Sheffield Curriculum Adventures

Across Yorkshire, 4 Local Cultural Partnerships are exploring how place-based learning, within the context of a 15-minute neighbourhood, can build the cultural capital of children and young people. Create Sheffield, Evoke Kirklees, Leeds CEP and Spark Wakefield are running 4 simultaneous pilot programmes in our communities from September 2022 - December 2023. These initiatives are supported by IVE, the ACE Bridge organisation for Yorkshire and the Humber. In Sheffield, the pilot is also supported by Sheffield Museums and Sheffield Hallam University.

Create Sheffield aims to support Sheffield schools in carrying out the development of creative interventions that link directly to both the National Curriculum and to the area local to each school, including the people who live in that community, and their cultures. Taking place in Shirecliffe, this pilot is the initial phase of a longer-term project alongside Sheffield Museums Trust to create a co-developed city-wide creative curriculum. The curriculum focused resources created during this project will be called Sheffield Curriculum Adventures and will be made available free of charge through the Create Sheffield website.

There are 4 main projects in this pilot that aim to turn lessons into adventures:

1. Watercliffe Meadow Community Primary, Y3 Rocks and Soils storytelling

We are working in Watercliffe Meadow Primary School to develop a resource to support teaching the Y3 Rocks and Soils curriculum.  Storyteller Carmel Page has written 5 brilliant stories that bring this area of the science curriculum to life, all linked to Shirecliffe and Sheffield.  These are being filmed by video company Blinkvivid as a resource for teachers to use as CPD.  There is a range of other resources being created that are linked to the videos and they will all be made available on the Create Sheffield website in the middle of next year.  We’ll be looking for some primary schools to test it out in the autumn term 2023 - get in touch if you’re interested or want more details.

2. Parkwood E-Act Academy, 500 Years of Sheffield History

This project involves developing curriculum-linked ideas for a Y7 project focused on bringing the history curriculum to life.  History teachers at Parkwood E-Act Academy have asked us to help them tell the stories the young people in Y7 need to hear for their curriculum AND inspire them by making the stories relevant to them as a diverse, multicultural group.  

There will be two parts to this project:

(i) With the aim of bringing together ideas and sharing in order to impact history teaching across Sheffield, Create Sheffield will gather together teachers and historians who will share their questions and findings around decolonisation of the history curriculum.  Initial online twilight meeting will be in January 2023 where we will introduce a Padlet/Wakelet style facility for everyone to share their info, then meet face to face in March/April 2023.  Do get in touch if you’d like to be part of these sessions or would like to know more about them.

(ii) Working with Sheffield Museums to create a 10-week topic focused on Migration through History (from Romans to the present day).  7 weeks of history and content followed by 3 weeks to plan, organise and present an oral history project within the community focused on collecting their stories of migration.  Resources will be created Jan – June 2023, followed by a trial in classrooms Sept/Oct 2023 before being available on the Create Sheffield website.

3. Meadows Nursery, creative workshops with parents linked to local stories

This pilot aims to develop creative approaches to storytelling in order to engage parents (of 2 year olds) to share local stories with their children. It is hoped that this will support the positive mental health of the parents and build community, as well as boosting the children’s social, emotional and language development.  This project will be devised and developed by Sheffield Hallam University students from their early years education and humanities courses, and will involve mentoring by a local storyteller.

4. Shirecliffe, Sheffield-based cultural resources development project

The development of a bank of open-access resources for teachers, parents, voluntary & community sector workers in the Shirecliffe area of the city.  This will involve opportunities to get resources/stories from the community, talking to local people. 

We look forward to keeping you up to date on progress of the pilots in this newsletter and on the Create Sheffield website.