And suddenly it’s December! As we wind down towards the end of the year, it feels the right time to reflect on what has been achieved this year as a partnership! We have continued to strengthen work in our priority areas: Youth Voice, Skills and Progression, Advocacy and Comms, and Health and Wellbeing.
This has resulted in the delivery of three Youth Voice CPDs throughout the year – for freelancers, teachers and cultural organisations with Lawrence Becko Associates. Work is being undertaken for a Youth Voice audit in the city and will continue into the new year. The Health and Wellbeing Pod was launched in November to a great turnout.
The end of the year culminated in the Cultural Education Conference which took place at The Tetley at the beginning of December. We had 155 people present throughout the day – a mixture of teachers and cultural organisations, with 25 of the total attendees being young people who either performed or presented at the conference. We heard from our keynote, Erica Whyman OBE, on Leading with Courage, as well as panellists speaking on topics such as partnership working, accessible cultural learning, and the impact of pupil voice on informing school’s cultural learning offers.
As part of the day, our partnership projects with the University of Leeds, Mapping Creative and Cultural Engagement in Schools and Culture on the Doorstep, were presented with toolkits and outcomes shared. We also heard from Carol Leeming MBE FRSA on The Genie is Out of the Bottle (a talk on inclusion in the creative curriculum), as well as from Professor Ally Walsh on arts learning partnerships in Cape Town. If you would like to learn more about the content of the sessions, you can see here for the slides created by our live scribe, Laura from Nifty Fox Creative.
Another key project that we have been working on this year is the rebranding of LeedsCEP to Leeds 33, with our new logo and branding shared at the conference. The partnership now has a clear identity thanks to the designs by Buttercrumble and to the young people we worked with to create this rebrand. Watch this space as we do further unveiling of the branding in 2024.
We would like to take a moment to thank all of our partners and members for their support this year, including support from LEEDS 2023, Leeds City Council and the University of Leeds. It has been quite a year unlike any other being part of the Year of Culture, and we are looking forward to what the future holds for Leeds 33 – our cultural education partnership.
We will be back in touch in the new year. Until then, we wish you all a peaceful and joyous festive season!
A summary of our Cultural Education Conference designed by Nifty Fox Creative 2023.
Special thanks to our talented scribe, Laura Evans-Hill (Nifty Fox Creative).
