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Empower Schools & Community Organisations

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Holiday Sparks

Our Summer, Autumn and Winter holiday programmes offered fun and free creative taster sessions during school holidays including visual arts, music, theatre-making, dance, creative writing and more.

We worked with 13 trusted community partners already delivering much-needed support in their communities through the city’s Holiday Activity and Food (HAF) programme. Across the year 732 young people and 72 adults took part in 55 free creative workshops and sessions, in 15 local youth and community spaces.

Two people working together on an art project in a bright classroom. A person with curly dark hair wears a blue shirt and a white apron with colorful pom-poms and stars. The apron has
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A group of children and an adult form a loose circle. All are dancing with one foot forward into the circle.
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A child wearing a mask spray paints a large canvas that is stood upright in front of him.
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Working with schools

Culture Start Schools Programme works with a number of schools in areas of high deprivation in Sunderland to support them introducing new and exciting creative opportunities for pupils facing financial hardship.

This year Culture Start has worked with Academy 360, Easington Lane Primary School, Gillas Lane Primary Academy, Harry Watts Academy, Hetton Primary School, Valley Road Primary School, Venerable Bede CE Academy and Usworth Colliery Primary School.

A group of children and an adult stand or kneel in a school hall, facing away from the camera with their arms raised. They wear handmade, colorful dragon wings attached to their backs, featuring different patterns and drawings. The children wear navy and yellow uniforms, while the adult wears a mustard-yellow top and jeans. The hall has a wooden floor, blue chairs stacked against the wall, and motivational words displayed on the walls.
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A person is drawing cartoon-style portraits of eight smiling people on a large sheet of paper. Each figure is labeled with a name: Alba, Sam, Teddy, Jack, Charlie, Sophie, Anastasia, and Treasure. The word “Creative” is written in large letters at the bottom of the page. The artist's hand is at the bottom of the page writing the letters
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Children in a classroom doing an art project together. The kids are wearing navy blue sweaters with yellow polo shirts underneath - a school uniform. They are standing around wooden tables with their hands held over colourful artwork. The art looks like nature scenes with trees, blue water, and colorful animals made from cut paper. Some pieces show green trees with brown trunks and bright animals.
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This place, our world

In partnership with Gentoo, Culture Start commissioned artist Elizabeth Kane to create a collaborative artwork for their Eskdene Rise development site in Hetton.

The artist worked with 360 children from Easington Lane Primary School, Gillas Lane Primary Academy and Hetton Primary School to create their own individual illustrations of mammals, amphibians, birds, and invertebrates. The illustrations were digitised to create the large-scale artwork.

This has been an incredible project. I am very grateful for the opportunity to have worked with three fantastic schools. I’m sure this experience will stick with them for many years…It’s probably one of the most impactful commissions I’ve had the pleasure of completing.

Elizabeth Kane, Visual Artist

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