Launch Black Country History Website

Now online: Black Country History website Black Country History is a new searchable website which allows users to find information about documents, maps, photographs, art works, objects and more held by archives and museums services within the Black Country. The website brings together in one place information about 119,000+ documents, archival photographs, maps, artefacts and artworks held by archives and museums across the Black Country; offering a comprehensive research resource for history enthusiasts worldwide. blackcountryhistory.org Launch Event Bilston Craft Gallery Thur 4 Nov 6 – 8 pm You are warmly invited to the official launch of the Black Country History website. The launch event will also feature the new Buy Black Country collection of contemporary retail products developed by designer-makers and inspired by the Black Country’s historic local collections.

Unique screening opportunity for interactive and film and video artists

The Public in West Bromwich are accepting submissions for two unique open exhibitions; TOUCHINTERACTIVE 2011, the UK’s first open exhibition specifically for digital interactive artwork, and SCREENING 2011, an open exhibition for film and video artists. Read more… The West Bromwich arts centre, famed for its commitment to digital arts, features a number of fixed interactive artworks including work by Blast Theory and Lia & Miguel Carvalhais, together with a changing programme of work by internationally renowned artists. The open exhibitions, which are free to enter, will provide a rare opportunity for both early career and professional interactive, film and video artists from across the country and internationally to showcase their work alongside such distinguished artists. TOUCHINTERACTIVE 2011 will display selected artwork on The Public’s many touch-screens, viewed by a weekly audience of thousands. Artwork must be fun and intuitive, and engaging for audiences of all ages. Submissions are also being accepted for SCREENING 2011 for single channel work – with or without audio – suitable for large scale projection or monitor display. Artists are invited to submit moving-image works which must not exceed 30 minutes. Budding filmmakers will see their work screened within the iconic arts centre. The deadline for submissions is Friday 26 November 2010. Download the application forms below: Application form: TOUCHINTERACTIVE 2011 Application form: SCREENING 2011 The artwork will be selected by the curatorial and technical teams at The Public. Successful applicants will be notified by 17 December 2010. The selected applications will be exhibited at The Public in January and February 2011. Priority will be given to early career artists and filmmakers and those living or working in the West Midlands. For more information about all events at The Public visit http://www.thepublic.com or call the box office on 0121 533 7161.

Creative Practitioner Development opportunity

Black Swans

“The Black Swans programme is a great way to get a much better insight into creative teaching and creative partnership working.” 2009-10 Participant.

A paid professional learning programme for new creative practitioners wanting to work in education.

Due to the success of the 09-10 Black Swans programme, Black Country Creative Partnerships and Creative Alliance are running the programme again.

The programme offers a paid training opportunity for people who would like to work in education as a creative practitioner.

Practitioners may be chefs, mathematicians, poets, visual artists, drama workers, technicians:  in fact anyone who wants to share their unique practice with children and young people, and their teachers and families.

At one time everyone in Britain thought swans were always white until someone went to Australia and brought back a black one!   Are you someone who can help children and educators explore those possibilities and question the obvious; make improbable connections and stretch imaginations?

Well if you are, then the Black Swans professional learning programme could be just what you need to develop the knowledge and skills to work within education.

As part of the Black Swans professional learning programme you will receive:

•10 days work in a Creative Partnerships school to devise, develop and deliver a project in line with the school’s enquiry question and an all inclusive fee of £1000 to do this.* 

•Five days professional learning programme made of seminars, workshops and action  learning sets led by experts in creative learning.

•Mentoring by some of the best creative practitioners and agents.

•The opportunity to contribute to a promotional catalogue.

*The enquiry question is the purpose for why a school is undertaking a Creative       Partnerships programme

Here’s what people on last years programme said:

“The Black Swan's Programme has given me the confidence to… literally let children go, give them a chance to discover things for themselves, decide when it is appropriate to teach and when it is best to step back and facilitate learning.”

“My Black Swan experience has clarified for me how I can adapt my practice to ensure that the individual needs of each pupil / school are met.”

To apply please send electronically:

•A C.V. of no more than 2 sides of A4

•A letter of no more than 2 sides of A4 outlining why you want to work in education,

what you can offer, and any experience you may have.

Please do not exceed the 500 word limit and only electronically submitted application will be considered.  Please make sure the CV and letter are in one attachment.  If you want to send images of your work one additional page of digital images can be included in the attachment. Hard copies or multiple attachments with an electronic application will be discounted.

To:      Vicky Goodwin at Creative Alliance          

Email: vicky@creativealliance.org.uk

Deadline: 10.00am Monday 4th October

Interviews will be held from Wednesday 6th October at Creative Alliance’s offices at The Custard Factory, Gibb Street, Birmingham, B9 4AA.

The dates for all the seminar sessions are to be confirmed but we will start with a whole day induction on Saturday 23rd October at Creative Alliance’s training room at The Custard Factory.

At this day you will have the opportunity to find out about the schools participating in the scheme and to indicate the type of school you might like to work in: nursery, junior, special needs or secondary and whether in a rural or urban location. There are 10 schools participating in the scheme and individual preferences cannot be guaranteed.

You will need to have or willing to get an enhanced CRB.

The dates of the work in schools will be arranged to suit individual practitioners/ schools.

After the initial induction day, you will be informed of the dates of the rest of the programmed across the autumn and spring terms.  This will include at least one other Saturday and evenings.

For further information about the programmed please contact Noel Dunne

07793 200 701 / noel@creativealliance.org.uk, or, noel@jobdunne.com

Creative Practitioner Opportunity

Edgar Stammers Primary School.

Harden Road,

Coalpool,

Walsall.

West Midlands.

WS3 1RQ

We have recently become a Creative Partnerships Enquiry School, and as part of that we are looking for a practitioner who is passionate about making literacy exciting for young people.  We are looking for a practitioner who will inspire our children and staff with new approaches to make our pupils read & write. We would also like to work with our parents to support our children’s reading.

The staff at Edgar Stammers are committed to giving the children the best education we possibly can. Through creativity and imagination we can give them opportunities they would never experience through their every day lives .We are all keen to participate in this project and the staff want to learn alongside the children .

Our enquiry questions is:

How as a whole school community can we develop our children's writing skills through original ideas and actions which will impact on the standards of all pupils?

We are planning for the practitioner to work with a year 2 & year 4 class (separately), we have planned about 12 days contact time over the school year. We are also hoping to run some CPD sessions for our staff.

The project is to start after half-term and we are planning a launch event in June 2011.

We would welcome to plan the details of contact time and frequency in close collaboration with our Creative Agent & Lead Teachers.

We are looking for an inspirational and dedicated practitioner who will help us develop the project. We are hoping to learn strategies for our teaching and learning in how to engage all our pupils better. We have left the brief deliberately open, so the practitioner can form the project with the pupils and staff.

The project budget is up to £3,000 for practitioner fee (includes travel) with a an additional small budget for materials and the launch.

We are not fixed on the practice of our practitioner but would like you to inspire us with new ideas how we can make literacy enjoyable & exciting.

So please surprise us……is it printmaking, cooking, filmmaking, poetry, knitting, ceramics, drama etc., or something we cannot even imagine-

surprise & excite us with your ideas…….we are looking forward to hearing from you.

Here the details how to apply:

We are looking for an exceptional creative practitioner who has:

-  An enhanced CRB disclosure (less than two years old)

- You will need public Liability up to 5million

-  An understanding of or an interest in how young people learn

-  A commitment to genuine collaboration

-  An ability to reflect and communicate

-  A willingness to learn and share skills

If you are interested please send us:

- A short statement, explaining why you want to work with us (no more than one page), please state clearly any technical requirements you will have.

-CV (no more than two pages)

- Two references

- Date of your CRB check

-a link to examples work or 6 images ( if applicable)

If you need to send a DVD please get in touch.

Please send all documents in the old word format or PDF, no docx please.

Selection:

For the interview we will ask you to prepare a 30min activity to demonstrate your approach to collaborative working, this will be followed by questions from students & staff. We will pay an interview reimbursement fee of £50 to the unsuccessful candidates.

Deadline:  13. October 2010   5pm

Interview date:  22. October 2010

If you cannot attend the interview date please get in touch.

All applications to be emailed to Iris Bertz, Creative Agent: ibertz@gmail.com

The project is part of Enquiry School project supported by Creative Partnerships www.creative-partnerships.com 

 and Black Country Creative Partnerships www.blackcountrycreativepartnerships.co.uk

 

Opportunity-short notice

Dear All

Grove Community Project, a small independent nursery (for children aged 2-4) in Handsworth, Birmingham has just been awarded a grant from Youth Music for a year-long early years music project. As well as employing me as their Music Leader for 20 days they are also looking for someone to work with me on a more regular basis at the nursery for 40 days across this academic year. The person that we had in mind now has other work and is unable to do it. At very short notice we are looking for someone to take up this exciting opportunity.

My role will be to deliver CPD, deliver some practical activity (both at Grove and the nearby nursery class of James Watt Primary School), support the relationships between the music leader and nominated early years practitioner, mentor the musician, support reflective practice and documentation, and look at music provision across the nursery.

We are looking for a musician who would deliver the weekly practical activity at the nursery. It would suit a musician who is open to child- initiated/adult responsive ways of working and who maybe has some experience of this. It would suit someone who has experienece of early years music but is maybe looking to build a longer-term relationship with a setting and develop their practice. It would be extremely helpful if they had Mondays or Tuesdays free. The fee is £175 per day.

The project is managed by Sarah Wood who is project manager for Grove Community Project.

Please send this to anyone you think might be interested. If they are interested they should get in touch with me by email in the first instance sending a CV or biog and a covering letter stating why they would be interested in being part of the project. I'm also very happy to for people to call me on my mobile 07786 736 861 if they want to know more about the project

Apologies for  the very short notice - we would like to start as soon as possible and therefore ask that if people are interested to get in touch asap.

With best wishes

Nancy

nancy@neruda.demon.co.uk

Turves Green Boys School are Staging the Good Person of Sezuan

Exhibition in Rugby & West Bromwich