CREATIVE COMMUNITIES ANNUAL REPORT 2009-2010
Community cohesion is really important to us at Thomas Tallis School and each year we co-ordinate a wide range of programmes with primary and secondary schools, colleges, youth centres, local residents, arts organizations, businesses, arts practitioners and outdoor education centres. We aim to be flexible and responsive to the changing needs of local people, and by working together with them we aim to help develop a strong, safe and supportive community. The waves that appear throughout this booklet were created by a generative art computer programme designed by Tak! and which forms part of our new school graphic identity. This application generates unique wave patterns in response to sounds. In this case we have chosen wave patterns produced by the phrase “creative community”. In this sense, the waves in the booklet are a visual representation of the distinctive voices in our dynamic and creative community.
ROB THOMAS Headteacher
Thomas Tallis School sits at the heart of a vibrant and diverse community. The school has stood on the same site for 35 years and is about to be rebuilt. The Kidbrooke Vision regeneration project will bring new homes, recreation areas and schools, improving life chances and aspirations for local people. We take our role as a community resource very seriously and this document describes the wealth of creative collaborations that are supported through a range of initiatives. As a Specialist Arts College, Leading Edge School and School of Creativity, we see the school very much as a creative hub to support the ambitions and talents of local people. We work hard to share the benefits of our resources with our community. We are proud of the contribution we make to community cohesion.
TRISH DOOLEY Deputy Head responsible for Community Cohesion
One school focus for community cohesion this year has been parental engagement. We have set up a consultative parent panel and have calendared open parent consultation evenings each half term from September 2010. All parents are welcome. Our new building grows every day. It’s a really exciting time for us as we embark on our final full academic year in this building. We plan to organise an enormous leaving event to say goodbye to the old Tallis and hello to the new. Watch this space...
LISA SPROAT Creative Communities Development Officer
Lots of great work has taken place this year in developing our existing partnerships and forging important new ones. Through high quality learning experiences and working towards common values, we hope we can continue to help build a happy, safe and rewarding future for all.
Thomas Tallis School is a Specialist Arts College, a Leading Edge School and national School of Creativity. This year, we have joined forces with the Greenwich City Learning Centre team to offer a series of projects in our partner primary schools aimed at promoting creative learning through the use of new technologies. The CLC has invested in a mobile classroom of ICT resources and Thomas Tallis School has provided a member of staff to work in our partner primary schools for one day a week to help identify ways in which this resource can be used to enhance learning and teaching. The program provides one half day per week, for half a term, in each participating school and will focus on one identified core curriculum area or subject unit. The sessions are designed to complement, enhance and develop the
work already planned and taking place in the classroom. We are delighted to have the opportunity to share some of our approaches to creative learning with our partners. We are keen to share ideas and best practice with our colleagues so that we can learn from one another. The project has several key aims: to enhance continuing professional development in our partner primary schools; to enhance students’ digital literacy; to develop sustainable projects, using an imaginative approach to ICT that also develops key skills; to have a positive impact on student engagement in and enjoyment of learning; to create a legacy of approaches, techniques and processes that can be used by others and to help raise standards across the curriculum. To date we have worked with: Year 4 students in Horn Park Primary School, creating
audio weather reports; with Year 4 students in Henwick Primary School, making stop frame animations about the Romans; with Year 3 and 4 students in Kidbrooke Park Primary School, producing animations exploring the water cycle; with Year 4 students in Holy Family R C School, constructing documentaries about the environment; and Year 4 students in Plumcroft Primary School, experimenting with audio interviews and the ancient Egyptians. We intend to expand the project next year across two days, revisiting some of our partner schools and exploring further techniques for integrating the creative use of new technologies into classroom practice.
“The children’s learning has been of high quality, creative, fun. The project has enabled the children to co-operate, problem solve and make decisions but, most of all, it has been memorable and they were all proud of their achievements.” Headteacher, Henwick School
Horse riding is a fantastic activity for students in city schools, requiring them to take a risk, learn resilience and be responsible for the welfare of the animal they are riding. Collaboration is another important feature of the project and the buddy scheme paired students from the Speech and Language Centre at Thomas Tallis School and Haimo Primary School students, SEN students from Tallis with Holy Family Primary School students and our deaf students with St Thomas More Primary students. They experienced all the areas of
stable management, learning about horses’ characteristics, how to saddle a horse, groom them, clean them out, feed them and rid them. The students’ smiles and excellent attendance showed that they enjoyed the new challenges. We are hoping that some students may now have the confidence to go horse riding again to Willow Tree Stables as they now know the instructors and have made a positive link with the club.
“ Students are known well as individuals within this cohesive student community. The extent and quality of students’ contribution to the wider community is good.
Ofsted 2010
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“If we want to make the world a better place to be, we must realise that together we can think millions of thoughts - alone only a few. Grethe Grønkjaer
As an outward facing specialist school, it is important to us to engage in discussions about learning with other schools locally, regionally and internationally. Consequently, we have an exciting and rapidly expanding community of schools abroad with whom we work on a variety of projects. Royal Dubai Students in Year 7 have been involved in a literacy project with their peers at the Royal Dubai School in the United Arab Emirates. The blog is a platform for the students to share their experiences of everyday life, the activities they pursue in their leisure time and their views about school. http://tallisroyal.tumblr.com We very much hope that this project will blossom into a really exciting international exchange. Future plans include a stronger element of professional development for participating teachers and the possibility of shared learning activities. The blog is a great solution to the issue of a five-hour time difference since conversations can be tracked online and students can respond to multiple posts at their convenience.
The Scandinavian Connection We have received several visits from colleagues and students from Scandinavia. In January, 20 learning professionals, including teachers, school leaders and government representatives, visited Tallis to find out about our use of new technologies to support creative learning. They were very appreciative of the experience and one immediate outcome was a request for another visit from a group of Swedish educators. In March we hosted a visit from a group of 30 students and their teachers from a school in Denmark. Again, they were interested in our creative use of ICT. We organised a workshop to explore the potential of online learning tools for collaboration and created a concrete sound composition based on sampled recordings of the school environment. We hope to continue this collaboration virtually using our Post 16 online magazine as a place to host a variety of creative products: http://tallislive.tumblr.com We hope to organise a return trip to schools in Sweden and Denmark at some point this year. OK LDN Thomas Tallis is a national School of Creativity and one of our responsibilities is to contribute
to the national and international debates about the value of creative learning. We are very privileged to have been asked to represent the UK at this year’s World Creativity Forum in Oklahoma. Students from our Creative Tallis Action Research Group will hopefully host a visit by teachers from the USA in October 2010. They will then travel to Oklahoma in November to collaborate with their American peers at Howe High School. They will make a keynote presentation to the delegates from around the world at the conference and research the A+ (Arts Plus) programme in their host school. This will be a prestigious, high profile and extremely exciting opportunity for our students to present their work in helping to promote creative learning at Thomas Tallis School. We have already used Skype to host video conferences with our American partners and set up an online social network to facilitate the exchange of information and creative products. All the students have made films expressing their thoughts about creative learning and their contributions have been really professional and inspiring. http://okldn.tumblr.com
Building on the success of the ‘Olympic Challenge’ last summer, we held a two day ‘Fairtrade and Social Enterprise Challenge’ during March 2010. The students were divided vertically in 58 countries representing the ethnic diversity of our student body and those countries with existing Fairtrade industries. The main emphasis of the day was learning about the divisions between rich and poor countries and how Fairtrade can help support growing economies. The research completed by the students was used to promote creativity and enterprise within the school.
Many country teams chose to share their work on the internet through the creation of blogs and websites, demonstrating their awareness of the impact of online marketing strategies. We have achieved the Intermediate International Schools Award through our commitment to promoting global awareness in the curriculum. Please take a look at some of the great work achieved on these days by visiting the project blog: http://tallisfairtradeday.tumblr. com/
“This project made me think a lot about life and friends” Student
“Working with the students was amazing, they really humbled me as I learned about their personal journeys” Kocoa Brown, Vocal Tutor
‘Music Makers’ has evolved from the initial concept of encouraging young people to reflect on their personal journeys. We all have a story to tell, no matter how young or how old we are, but being able to express the story of your journey is not always easy. This project covered a unit entitled “Create a piece of work in any media about a personal journey” the year 10 and 11 students completed this unit which goes towards an ASDAN COPE qualification (worth grade B at GCSE). The project involved young people charting their individual life journeys and then being guided through the process of
creating a collaborative product that expressed key elements of their stories. Once the text was written, the young people then decided whether it should be a song, a spoken word piece or even a monologue. This was then set to music, recorded in the studio and filmed. At each stage the young people were fully involved; they made all the final decisions about the content and were in control of the outcome. The tutors acted as guides and mentors. Our vision was to provide each participant with an opportunity to express a range of emotions and address personal issues in a positive and creative way
whilst boosting their sense of achievement as they develop new skills or enhance existing skills. At the end of the project the young people saw for themselves the growth, development and maturity that they gained from being involved in a project where collaboration was the key to success. We found that the students developed greater empathy for one another. They felt respected, listened to and trusted to complete tasks. This had an important impact on their self-esteem.
During March, eighteen Year 11 GCSE photography students from Eltham Hill Technology College for Girls came to Thomas Tallis School to make some photograms and pinhole photographs using our dark room facilities. They were midway through their exam unit so were working with their chosen themes, ‘Identity’, ‘My World’ or ‘Natural Form’. Each student made a range of interesting images with processes they had never used before. We set up a blog for them,
photographyatelthamhill.tumblr.com
so their work was uploaded for all to see when they returned back to school. The teachers could then use this for moderation purposes whilst the students had a digital record of their achievements. Their images were also used in their sketchbooks. They made critical and contextual
links to relevant photographers with the support of resources, which were located on the blog. This has inspired the Head of Department to make a storage cupboard into a darkroom for next year. We were then invited by Eltham Hill to work with year 10 and 11 photography students. Here we gave individual students a tutorial about their books. We had the opportunity to share ideas with students, offer advice and to generally get to know them. We took several year 10 students around the school. A very sunny day allowed us to take pictures on the SLR cameras of reflections and shadows. Responding well, the students then made some abstract images in and around the building. Examples were uploaded on the blog and we left many questions and suggestions
there to help students with their future home learning and class work. Recently we have been working with three members of staff from Eltham Hill, two photography teachers and an LSA, showing them how to use the darkroom to make photograms and pinhole images. They are going to make a departmental photography blog for students and staff, using it as a planning resource, to share ideas and to act as a diary for their subject area. Hopefully this will encourage all KS4 photography students to make their own blog and to use this as an extension of their sketchbooks. We look forward to hopefully working with the teachers and photography students again next year, watching their skills and ideas develop and grow.
“ The school’s inclusive ethos
underpins its approach to ensuring equality of opportunity for all
“
Ofsted 2010
Media Magic with Henwick This year a group of twelve year 5 students from Henwick’s Vesuvius Class have been working with the media department and some sixth form media mentors in a series of ‘media magic’ workshops to develop media literacy. This small group of Henwick students will in the future act as media mentors themselves for their classmates and share their media expertise. The ‘Media Magic’ project consisted of a series of 3 workshop days, each specialising in a different media form, so in December 2009 the year 5s became a budding group of young filmmakers, challenged with the task of creating ‘movie magic’ by producing a film in a day! With the assistance of KS5 film mentors and the media team, the Henwick students worked through the filmmaking creative process in production teams, from initial idea sharing, to storyboarding, shooting on location around the Tallis site and finally editing their short films using iMovie with only their newly acquired skills and whatever was to hand as props, set and costume. We finished the day with a premiere of 3 short films and thunderous
applause for the ‘movie magic’ created by the Henwick students in a single day! The students worked with the equipment and their new filmmaking skills really imaginatively and their focus and problem solving skills were impressive to witness. In April the focus was on creating ‘animation magic’ with digital cameras, staff phones, iStop Motion and a huge amount of Henwick creativity and imagination. Media staff and KS5 animation mentors helped the Henwick students work in animation teams throughout the morning, brainstorming, experimenting with ideas, photographing, editing and adding sound to create a series of animations on the theme of ‘animation magic’; making our audience witness the unbelievable! We ended the day with a screening of the magic they’d created to celebrate their hard work, ingenuity and imagination. Photography was on the menu for the third and final ‘media magic’ workshop with a carousel of activities to produce a range of ‘photographic magic’. The Henwick students created sun prints using a range of random items from old tape cassettes to paper clips,
used pinholes cameras and the darkroom to create photographic images and worked with digital cameras and photoshop to produce digitally manipulated group images. By the end of the day they had learnt about 3 different photographic processes and had some fantastic images to show for it. The students took to photography instantly, responding to challenges with creativity and enthusiasm. The project provided Henwick students and staff with the opportunity to use new media technologies to further develop student media literacy and provided KS5 students at Tallis with some valuable mentoring experience to further develop their own skills. It’s been absolutely terrific working with the Henwick staff and students on each of the ‘media magic’ days and the whole team, media staff and KS5 mentors, would love to continue to work with them and others schools to create more media magic in the future.
“Thomas Tallis makes everything extremely easy for us to get their students involved. We consider Thomas Tallis to be one of our key academic partners.” CLIFFORD CHANCE
In April 2010, Year 13 Career Academy Students graduated from their two year Career Academy program at the Institute of Education. The programme includes Guru Lectures, Partners in Business, Organisational Visits and a six-week Internship, with organisations such as the Bank of England, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley and the National Audit Office. The Thomas Tallis Motown Band was invited to perform at the Career Academy Graduation. All the students were a credit to the school, conducting themselves in a very professional manner. Ian Williams, the coordinator of the Thomas Tallis Career Academy, was given a special award in recognition of his work in supporting the students and the Career Academy. Students excelled at the Worshipful Company of International Bankers awards evening with Darius Moosavi achieving the overall runner up prize. The 6th form Economics students were invited to write an
essay entitled ‘During the recent crisis, why have governments not allowed banks to go bust? Many of our students were commended and received a certificate. The overall winner from Thomas Tallis was Darius Moosavi and the runner up was Wen Hui Mi. The aim of the Law Academy project is to raise aspirations of capable young people to pursue professional careers. They took part in sessions to improve their presentation skills and talks to leading legal practitioners. The first session provided general information on legal careers and getting to know the working life of barristers and judges. The second builds on the skills of students with advice about making presentations and legal research. The third and final session culminates in a debating competition and a reception for parents and teachers. Our Business Links Coordinator, Annmarie Woodcraft, was asked to sit on the board of South East London Learning Partnership. This has culminated
in an event for our Year 8 Students run in conjunction with Well-Being and Work Related Learning. The Brand X Challenge meant that each team of was asked to produce, market and promote a new drink brand. Two teams of students were selected as the winners to represent Thomas Tallis at the South East London Final where students had to pitch their ideas for a new soft drink in front of a panel of distinguished business leaders. In September 2010, Year 13 Geography students were invited to participate in the G20 summit. They were split into working groups: Trade, Development and Poverty - a global challenge; Banks and the Financial System - rebuilding following the crisis; Jobs, Growth and the Economy beating the recession; and the Environment, Education, Skills and the Next Generation - investing in the future. Two members were nominated to present their group’s findings to the Student G20.
The Olympic Challenge event in July 2009 was a whole school initiative that involved a collapsed timetable over two days. Students formed 56 vertical groups from Years 7 to 12 representing a range of Olympic countries. We also chose countries that were representative of the cultures and languages that make up our school community. Teams worked together to develop a bid for their country to host the Olympic Games by creating a display and presentation. The presentations incorporated research about their country, what lasting legacy would hosting the Olympics
have for their country and how they would meet the Olympic Values. All students gave an oral presentation and the winning groups made presentations to the whole school in assembly. The best presentations were put on display around the building to celebrate the quality and sophistication of the work. The days are designed to promote a more cohesive community by celebrating the diversity that makes up Thomas Tallis School, and by placing students in vertical groups and so dissolving the barriers that often exist between students of different ages. The nature of the challenge was
also such that a wider range of personal learning and thinking skills are developed, such as problem solving, working with other people, communicating effectively and organizing and managing time. Team members were required to adopt a number of roles and students had to manage the flow of tasks in order to achieve a common goal. These skills are those that students need for future work and life, and by collaborating in this way we have been able to draw out these skills explicitly and challenge the whole community to think, work and learn in a different way.
school has developed good partnerships, “ The particularly through its specialist status, to
promote learning across the school and to extend learning across the community. Ofsted 2010
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The main aim of this project was to promote community cohesion and find an imaginative and engaging way for Horn Park School to connect with a group of its parents. Inspired by the ‘History of the World in 100 Objects’ at the British Museum, we devised a project with Eelyn Lee Productions to create stories based on objects owned and loved by a group of parents at the school. Two mornings a week for three weeks the group met to take part in workshops with
Eelyn. Each member brought with them an object that was important to them and told the rest of the group a story about what its significance: precious garnet rings, a large rag doll and maps of the world all gradually revealed their secrets. The parents then wrote poems about the objects, took photographs and filmed in various locations. They then began the task of editing everything together to create their very own film poems. The standard was very high, with everyone demonstrating
great attention to detail and creative decision-making. Parents brought in additional props and materials; some also dressed their children in costume and filmed them. Many of the parents had no previous experience of using this type of technology, but they soon got to grips with the techniques and created some beautiful heart felt film poems.
“Life giver, the father, the mother, the sun what a bright joy to be one”
“World map uniting all people of different backgrounds”
“Family tree for all generations”
“Warm childhood memories flow through the garnet vessel” Extracts from parents’ poems
This exciting new initiative was established by the Leading Edge Partnership Programme (LEPP) to help support our wider community of parents and students. Together Margaret McMillan Outdoor Education Centre, Thomas Tallis Secondary School, Kidbrooke Secondary School, Charlton Secondary School, Kidbrooke Park Primary School and Boxgrove Primary School combined resources, skills and expertise to plan
a fantastic day, packed full of
exciting challenges, working with all parents and carers in supporting their child’s social
and emotional development whilst also enriching their relationship. Students and their chosen role models took part in many activities. The different circus zones encouraged everyone to explore new skills, throw caution to the wind and have fun together. Mentoring helped to focus on positive ways of supporting each other and allowed everyone to celebrate the things they are good at. All the various physical adventures enhanced team building, communication and supportive discussion between the student and role model. The Relaxation
and Kandinsky inspired art sessions concentrated on the reflection of each individual. This required participants to evaluate their experiences and make positive affirmations for the future. Throughout the day, members of the group visited the diary room to record their feelings and personal discoveries on camera.
“ Starting our community partnership with Thomas Tallis is one of the best decisions we’ve made. Students are motivated, open-minded, willing to learn and unafraid of a challenge. CLIFFORD CHANCE
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As part of Chinese New Year celebrations, a group of five students from Thomas Tallis School visited Eltham Green Nursery on Friday 12th February 2010 to assist with their preparations for the festival. Over a sixth of the people in the world celebrate Chinese New Year. Customs vary in different parts of the world, but everywhere the main idea is the same. It is a time to remember the family and wish everyone peace and prosperity in the coming year. The Tallis students got involved by reading stories to
the younger children about Chinese New Year, helping them make decorations including a colourful dragon and then showing them how to do the Dragon Dance. Everyone involved enjoyed the experience and we are very pleased to be invited back next year. It was an excellent opportunity for our students to develop their communication and leadership skills whilst celebrating Chinese New Year!
Web Play is an arts education charity that combines drama and technology to create inspirational, cross-curricular projects for schools that raise children’s achievement, creativity and cross-cultural awareness. Local schools are linked online to collaborate with each other and with professional theatre and drama artists. Through drama and technology, they help children not only develop their literacy, drama, numeracy and ICT skills but also build on their knowledge of history, geography and citizenship. The websites used are secure and for students and teachers only – one of these is ThinkQuest, which enables students and teachers to exchange ideas with drama professionals and communicate with partner schools across the world. Web Play launched in January 2000 with six schools from London and Los Angeles.
Since then, over 200 schools and 20,000 children have taken part in projects across the UK, the US and India. Most recently Thomas Tallis School commissioned Web Play to work with two of our local primary schools, Henwick and Kidbrooke Park, and they embarked on an interesting virtual journey together sharing their local surroundings. The teachers of these classes took part in a training day and taught each class the role of a secret agent. During the project students learned about internet safety and appropriate online behavior, They researched their specific areas both online and through local walks and interviews, then they attended a ‘Secret Meeting’ drama workshop, held at Tallis, where partner classes met in person and used improvisation and drama techniques to investigate their local community. The
students worked in small teams to create multi-media ‘guidebooks’ of their local area. The schools had a Web Play end of project celebration, which included a digital pack with downloadable resources and certificates. We were delighted to be able to promote and host this project with our partner schools since the creative use of new technologies is central to our mission, both as a specilaist arts college and national School of Creativity.
“I didn’t realise there was so much to do in my area” Student
The community cohesion group has been very busy during the last year. We now have a parent panel consisting of 15 parents and here are some of our achievements; • Better forms of communication between the school and home including a text messaging service, use and promotion of email addresses, continual review of the use of the website and better home school links between tutors and parents particularly in Y7. • Better forms of access to teachers via the website. Curriculum evenings where parents practically experience their child’s learning and assessment at key stage 3. These will take half-termly. • A Y6 transition evening for parents and children to discuss their excitement and concerns about moving from primary to secondary school.
• A Y7 parents consultative evening where we discuss and develop a shared understanding of the potential of the KS3 curriculum. • A Y11 meet the tutor evening for parents to discuss the expectations of Y11 students and develop strategies for avoiding stress. Our future plans include a Y12 transition evening for parents and students and a Y10 ‘what should I expect as my child embarks on KS4?’ evening. The success of the parent panel means that reviews of all policies will now take place using a specially convened parent panel. We are gathering names of parents who wish to contribute to the leadership and management of the school at various forums. From September 2010, a parent consultative evening will take place every half term.
In addition to the above, we host the standard parent/teacher consultation evenings although the venue and format for these has changed as a result of parent feedback, a Y7 ‘meet the tutor evening’, and a Y10 parent/ student/tutor target setting interview. The leadership team meet the parents of Y11 twice to discuss progress and targets, and progression at post 16. Other events through the Friends of Tallis have included a ‘decorate the concourse day’, a home baked cake sale and a barbecue at the ‘Past, Present & Future’ events. Why not visit our blog for more details: http://friendsoftallis.tumblr.com
“I wish my teachers had made maths this interesting” Parent
Tree Dressing
The annual Tree Dressing celebrations on the Ferrier Estate in Kidbrooke have become landmark community events, offering local people a chance to escape the darkness of winter, however briefly, to light up the night sky with fireworks, listen to great music, parade with beautiful handmade lanterns and feast together in the Community Hall. Each year, the diverse communities of Kidbrooke in South East London, get together to organise a non religious festival celebrating light in the midst of winter darkness. Young people create decorations for the trees in Telemann Square in the Ferrier housing estate and these provide the backdrop for an evening of festivities. Music provided the theme for this
year’s Tree Dressing celebrations. We worked with artists Rachel Bennett and Nick Cattermole to support the musical creativity of two community groups. Rachel worked with young women from Greenwich Youth for Christ to write and record the song “Hard Times”. Sam Murray helped the girls record their track in the Thomas Tallis School recording studio. Nick Cattermole collaborated with the Chinese Vietnamese community school to create some exciting hip hop tracks featuring traditional sounds. The Valentinos jazz band was on hand to lead the lantern procession and play in the Community Hall as food was served and the Tallis Steel Pans gave a rousing performance following the Mayor’s speech. In recent years, the event has
grown in size and ambition. Many individuals and organisations take an active role in helping to organise the event. This year, these included: Thomas Tallis School, Greenwich Community College, Holy Family School, Holy Spirit Church, The Greenwich Food Co-operative, Greenwich Council, Emergency Exit Arts, The Ferrier Cultural Centre, Kidbrooke Vietnamese Chinese Supplementary School, Southern Housing Group, Greenwich Youth for Christ, The Ferrier Safer Neighbourhood Team and Berkeley Homes. The Ferrier Estate is undergoing a massive regeneration programme and it is vital the existing and new communities of this part of London have regular opportunities to meet and celebrate together.
“Thomas Tallis Steel Pan band made this year’s Ferrier Tree Dressing event so special. The band was excellent - they were professional beyond their years and really contributed to the atmosphere on the night. “
Local Resident
The Learning Away programme has been set up and supported by the Paul Hamlyn Foundation. Thomas Tallis School and its partners St Matthew Academy and the Widehorizons Outdoor Education Trust will work with students from three Year groups across the three schools to transform the way they learn. The Year groups and functional groups have been selected to achieve maximum impact for each school’s strategy and plan, and to fit in with the school’s existing residential provision. Each cohort of students will build on and develop the changes they have achieved throughout the rest of their school careers. We have also planned for each cohort to influence, through mentoring, younger students in the same school and potentially students from other schools in the partnership. We will deliver
summer residential events for children transferring from primary to secondary education, which will be led and supported by the students in Years 8, 10 and 11. This will not only catalyse a new way of learning for the participants in the critical transitional year, but will also enable the older participating students to share their own skills and experience and coach the younger students during the residential events. Graduates from each Year will also be expected to support and mentor those attending the residentials in the Year below. In this way we see the transformational impact of the residential events spreading through the school until, over time, they become the `normal’ way of learning. We will also link these changes to other initiatives already taking place or planned to take place in the schools, for example the strong
emphasis on Duke of Edinburgh and ASDAN accreditation, existing mentoring and coaching schemes, volunteering proposals etc, to gain the maximum effect for the students involved and accelerate the changes that occur across the school. Staff from all schools involved took part in two training weekends at Margaret McMillan House Field Centre to focus on underpinning the framework we are developing for residential learning; allowing structured time for students ongoing quality reflection, having clear aims for the residential and planning varied activities to meet them accordingly, encouraging all participants to take ownership of the experience, allowing chaos and risk within safe boundaries and planning next steps together on how new skills can be used.
This year our year 11 drama GCSE students got to work with a physical theatre practitioner from WAC Performing Arts and Media College. The students took part in three workshops exploring the style ‘Pantomime Blanche’. They then used what they had learned to develop their devised pieces, developing characters, props and scenery using this new style. These workshops really helped to enhance their pieces for the GCSE devising exam. WAC also led two workshops with the year 12 and 13 A level students. These workshops were specifically designed to develop aspects of
the students’ skills in particular areas of the course specification through professional input. These students were able to explore the process of taking direction and then re-working scenes to improve their final product.
“It was great for our students to work with a professional on such an exciting style” Head of Drama
This summer we celebrated the rich past, dynamic present and inspiring future of Thomas Tallis School in a mixed media, site specific Festival of Creativity entitled ‘Past, Present & Future’. It has been almost forty years since the creation of the existing school site and we are approximately a year away from the move to the new building. The festival is designed to launch a year-long celebration of the social and cultural history of the present site, reflecting on the extent to which it has enabled all manner of creative activity over the years and making a commitment to extend
and develop this tradition of innovation. The festival culminated in two evening performances on 15 and 16 July, featuring a 1970s street party, numerous site-specific drama and dance performances, Top of the Tallis Pops, the Tallis Steel Pans playing hits from the last four decades, the Measurement Shop in collaboration with Tangled Feet theatre company, an installation of school desk drawings, sound bombing, the Tallis Cinema showing student films and fantastic fashion designs. The Friends of Tallis barbecue was a big hit.
Our intention is to have a big get together of ex students and teachers next year and we are getting in touch with our alumni through an official Facebook group that already has attracted several hundred members.
“I thought this event was brilliant and is what Tallis is all about, recognising the talents of our students and promoting them” Parent
Kidbrooke Park Primary School Horn Park Primary School Henwick Primary School
Rt. Hon. Bridget Prentice MP
St Thomas More Primary School
Holy Family Primary School
Sherington Primary School Rt. Hon. Clive Efford MP
Brooklands Primary School
Beacons Football Club • Greenwich Basketball Club • London Storm Basketball Club • New Covenant Church • Poly Weights Football Club • Redeemed Church of God SELTEA (South East London Tamales Education Association) • Tan’gun Taekwondo Academy • Tudor Football Club
Thomas Tallis School Kidbrooke Park Road London SE3 9PX t 020 8856 0115 f 020 8319 4715 www.thomastallis.co.uk
Trish Dooley Deputy Headteacher responsible for Community Cohesion 020 83313005 pdooley@thomastallis.org.uk
Lisa Sproat Creative Communities Development Officer 020 8856 0115 ext 1079 Mob: 07939063689 lsproat@thomastallis.org.uk
Douglas Greig Deputy Headteacher responsible for Leading Edge Co-ordination 020 8331 3001 dgreig@thomastallis.org.uk
Annmarie Woodcraft Business Links Co-ordinator 020 8856 0115 ext 240 Mob: 07719 355125 awoodcraft@thomastallis.org.uk
Jon Nicholls Arts College Development Manager 020 8331 3054 jnicholls@thomastallis.org.uk
Specialist Arts College Leading Edge School School of Creativity
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