Engagement with schools
How do we encourage young people from Tyneside to think about making a career in planning and starting that career path at Newcastle University?
In the spring of 2009 a number of colleagues began discussions with Geography teachers in some local schools and colleges with the aim of helping us all smooth the transition between school and university. Out of these discussions we all felt that setting up a day event with A level students in the university might help raise aspirations and orientate them to a planning degree: but what to do? The day needed to have some connection with the A level syllabus, be activity based, be achievable in the time and enjoyable. On December 17th Paola Gazzola, Rose Gilroy and Zan Gunn together with Paul Crompton welcomed 15 students from Newcastle, Gateshead and South Tyneside colleges and their Geography teachers to compete for the Capital of Liveability.
In small groups students brainstormed what made places good or bad before moving on to think about what made their location liveable; doing a SWOT exercise on the economic, environmental and social issues of their place. Gathering their ideas they worked on how to present their bid to the whole group - posters and presentations were the most popular choices but we even had a role play. Using TurningPoint technology we voted for the winning bid.
Feedback from the session was positive and made students more aware of planning as a potential career path. From our perspective it was fun, we learned more about the capabilities of an A level cohort and have strengthened relationships with local schools. We hope to do further workshops.
NE6 Voice Exhibition - Great North Musuem 6th-29th April 2012
Sponsored through the School's Engagement Fund, this project was inspired by the paintings of George Shaw, of his teenage home and neighbourhood in Coventry. George Shaw had his own exhibition at the Baltic in May 2011 and was then nominated for the Turner Prize in December 2011.
Working alongside Part II Architecture students, Jennie Webb and Lauren Wedderburn, Teresa Strachan (Senior Teacher at APL) worked with local school children, inspiring them to take photos of their environment. Teresa comments 'By involving young people from a local secondary school to take photos of the area where they live, favourite places around their school and in the city, we hoped to encourage them to observe their built environment. We also wanted to establish if this process of recording a young person's built environment might be a first step for them to engage with the town planning process, to begin a dialogue with built environment professionals'.
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