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Scott Piggott

The Jump Studios Summer Showcase: Celebrating Young People’s Work

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This week, we opened our doors for a very special three-day event: our summer showcase!

The showcase was all about celebrating the work of the young people who have been attending sessions over the last few months to create a whole range of podcasts, designs, prototypes, music and much, much more.

What is the Summer Showcase?

The Summer Showcase is a chance to show off the work created by an incredible group of young people over the last ten weeks. Work from ‘Control Alt Delete‘, ‘Maker City‘, ‘Creative Hub‘ and ‘Sound Wave‘ was on display to the young people from all of the groups.

Clara, the lead facilitator from Maker City, described the showcase as:

The end of term Summer Showcase was really a chance to celebrate the amazing creative work the young people have been doing despite going through a global pandemic! We have been really lucky to work with local young people who have shown immense resilience and ability to adapt and be flexible in order to get back to doing the things they love doing! I was really impressed with all the work we showcased, and it was a really lovely experience seeing the young people engaged and interested in what others had been up to! We were able to invite the funders from Maker City to come and have a look at this year’s projects. The Maker City projects really demonstrated how important it is to young people to be able to amplify their voices on social topics that matter to them! From wooden protest placards to 3D models “Clean up our Beaches boxes” their ideas were inspiring!  

Clara Collett, head of maker city

What did the young people make of the showcase?

My project was about pollution and recycling. So I made a bag out of old jeans which contributes to climate change.

Jasmine, 13

I made productions to raise awareness about women’s rights and sexism to empower women.

Lois, 13

What skills have they been developing this term?

Every Monday to Wednesday, a group of young people have been coming into Knowle West Media Centre to engage in a series of activities to help learn and develop new skills.

On Mondays, Control Alt Delete is about tech and coding.

On Tuesdays, Maker City is about digital fabrication and social action.

On Wednesdays, Creative Hub is about engaging creativity and Sound Wave is about music and podcasts.

In Control Alt Delete, numerous programmes were made in a variety of programming languages, games through Scratch and creative builds in Minecraft! At Creative Hub, it was really exciting to be able to display young people’s photography and digital design projects. And in Sound Wave: After School, it was great to be able to share everyone’s podcasts and original songs. We also had the chance for some live performances on the day.

mike moast, head of control alt delete, creative hub and sound wave.

If you would like to check out some of the music created by the young people over the term, check out a link to our Soundcloud.

At the showcase, we were also able to present a project that some of the Maker City participants have been working on – in collaboration with University College London. They have worked with researcher Kylo Thomas to undertake important field work on equitable Maker Spaces for Young People. 

Here is one of those participants, Max, made of the project…

Maker City has made it easy to create products to show what is going on in the world.

Lexi, 12

This whole term has been a very unique one. With lockdowns and restrictions changing what looks like a ‘normal after-school session’, we had to adapt both virtually and safely.

So we are incredibly proud of the work they showcased and cannot wait for the next term of activities.

If you want to follow us for updates on spaces in the sessions, opportunities for young people and sharing some of the work they have been up to – you can follow us on Instagram or Twitter.

Interested in coming to Jump Studios After-School sessions in Autumn 2021? Sign up here!

Starting your Arts Award with us this summer…

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If you know a young person thinking of joining our whole host of summer activities, we are also offering the chance to start their Bronze Arts Award ?

This applies to all three holiday programmes and is an amazing way to begin the journey towards a qualification in the arts ? 

We spent the February 2021 half-term helping young people start on their Arts Award, but what exactly is it?

What is an arts award?

An arts award is “a range of unique qualifications that supports anyone aged up to 25 to grow as artists and arts leaders, inspiring them to connect with and take part in the wider arts world through taking challenges in an art form – from fashion to digital art, pottery to poetry”.

It’s an opportunity for young people to discover more about arts and arts industries, gain experience and even gain a qualification along the way.

It’s split into three awards: Bronze, Silver and Gold.

Each award incrementally requires even more hours and more commitment, but simultaneously offers more UCAS points.

Doing an arts award requires a facilitator (a school, a community centre or someone like yours truly) and can be run in the way which they see fit for the young people.

An image from when we launched the arts award in February.

What do young people get out of doing it?

First and foremost, they get a qualification that works like so:

Bronze Award: Level 1 Qualification

Silver Award: Level 2 Qualification

Gold Award: Level 3 Qualification (Equivalent to 16 UCAS Points)

But, certainly for the first two awards, an arts award is much more about discovering new arts and gaining experience that otherwise you may find difficult to come across.

As mentors, it would be our job to assist young people in pinpointing what they would like to actually do for their Arts Award, as well as supporting them through their journey. This way, they are not alone in achieving this award.

It’s a chance for young people to actively participate, actively experience and actively create their chosen art.

How do you register?

Easy!

Please contact clara@kwmc.org.uk for more information about the arts award and follow the link in our bio to sign-up for our summer programme ☀️

Jump Studios Stories: Jack Louis Cooper

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We sat down and spoke with musician Jack Louis Cooper about his experiences with Jump Studios and how they have impacted his life.

We first met Jack during The Male Room programme in 2018. This was a programme we ran to support young men in exploring their own masculine identity whilst simultaneously developing their skills as creative professionals.

Jack (middle) with some of the participants of ‘The Male Room’ project in 2018.

Jack met multiple future collaborators and friends on the programme, whom he still works with to this day.

Soon after ‘The Male Room’, Jack was heavily involved in our Sound Wave: Retreat which led him to becoming one of our volunteer Youth Facilitators in our after-school sessions.

Jack leading in a Sound Wave session on a Wednesday afternoon.

In the interview we recorded with Jack, he talks about his own experiences in education and how important he finds after-school sessions in a young persons personal development.

Jack has been working with us for multiple years now and we can’t wait to see how he progresses both professionally and creatively.

If you want to follow Jack’s music, then you can do so at his Instagram found here.

Keep up to date with our journey by following Jump Studios on Instagram and Twitter.

Why young people want to say ‘Climate Emergency’ and not ‘Climate Change’.

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During a recent after-school session with young people, the issue of ‘Climate Change’ came up once again and this prompted a larger conversation: is that the best way to describe it?

We recognise that at Jump Studios we have a responsibility to sensibly facilitate the conversations between young people around social action.

Topics like racism and sustainability often, and understandably, come up in conversations with the young people that come to our sessions. It’s our job to ensure that the conversation takes place without bias and political influence from our side.

We recently held a session where a young person challenged the term ‘Climate Change’ and prompted us questioning whether this is something which now transcends politics.

What you need to know about the Climate Emergency:

  • Climate change is real and human activities are the main cause.
  • The concentration of greenhouse gases in the earth’s atmosphere is directly linked to the average global temperature on Earth.
  • The concentration has been rising steadily, and mean global temperatures along with it, since the time of the Industrial Revolution.
  • The most abundant greenhouse gas, accounting for about two-thirds of greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide (CO2), is largely the product of burning fossil fuels.
  • Methane, the primary component of natural gas, is responsible for more than 25 per cent of the warming we are experiencing today. It is a powerful pollutant with a global warming potential over 80 times greater than CO2 during the 20 years after it is released into the atmosphere.

Source: UNEP

What is the problem with saying ‘Climate Change’?

What we gathered from the discussion is that young people undoubtedly appreciate the importance of the environment and realise the negative impact humans are having on it.

They also deemed that climate ‘change’ was too natural a term and that we could do more to address the situation. One young person summarised the issue very well:

“Change is neutral. Emergency is now”

2019 was the second hottest year on record (source: WMO) and suggesting that it is simply ‘different’ is the equivalent of suggesting a pan of boiling water ‘isn’t cold’. Whilst true, it is certainly misleading.

We have an opportunity at Jump Studios to help influence social action through the next generation and this is not a question of what we think is right, rather what the young people think. We don’t need to give lectures on these issues because, even amongst young people aged 10 to 14, they already know the challenge we face.

We are not looking to change the discourse on the topic but rather give it a more suitable terminology.

Source: Getty Images from BBC News.

Why ‘Climate Emergency’?

The reason is simply that it is just that, an emergency.

If the next generation can be raised beginning the conversation with ‘Climate Emergency’ as opposed to just ‘Change’ then the next generation can be using the terminology that they deem suitable.

What can you do?

If you, or somebody you know, work with young people, then consider asking them what they think is a more fitting term: ‘Climate Change’ or ‘Climate Emergency’.

We’ve found with the young people that attend our sessions that these issues are well-established in their discourse and that they want to talk about it.

It’s up to us to give them the best opportunity to grow up and help positively change the society we live in.

If you have any questions, then feel free to email me at scott@kwmc.org.uk to discuss why we have made this decision or how we are implementing it.

Keep up to date with our journey by following Jump Studios on Instagram and Twitter.

Our Impact from November 2020 to March 2021

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We wanted to look back and reflect on the impact we have made on young people over the last few months. So here are a sample of statistics we’ve gathered together:

50 Virtual Sessions

This last year, we’ve had to deal with running after-school sessions in a lockdown. Whilst this has been a journey in itself, we’ve proudly managed to deliver 50 virtual sessions to young people in the area to get them engaged with arts, technology and social action.

45 Young People in our Weekly Sessions

We are always blown away by the young people that come to our sessions on a weekly basis and it is incredible to see the progress they make throughout the months (and more) that they spend with us.

Young People, like Manu, have been attending sessions for much longer than just one term and we hope to be a part of their lives as they grow even further.

Since we reopened our doors, we’ve seen 45 young people coming through our doors on a weekly basis.

Young People turning up for one of our after-school sessions.

20 Videos Produced for Clients

The last four months has seen the Eight Creative Agency create 20 different videos for clients. That means over twenty established and emerging creatives being paid to work on exciting, paid projects in the Bristol area.

The most recent projects that Eight have produced have been with the South West Creative Technology Network, where they were capturing stories of data prototype projects.

20 One-to-One Support Sessions

One of the services we provide to young people is one-to-support sessions to help guide them on b0th a personal and professional level.

The last few months, we’ve been able to offer twenty of those sessions to young people in the Bristol area.

16 KWMC Staff in Coaching Training

Part of what makes the Knowle West Media Centre amazing is our approach to coaching (a learning process which aims to grow individuals awareness, responsibility and choice) and over recent months, we currently have 16 staff at Knowle West Media Centre in coaching training.

This means that our staff will be more equipped to listen, adopt a growth mindset and raise their aspirations which is a fantastic tool when working with young people.

15 Young People in Half-Term Sessions

This February half-term, we ran the ‘Young People Can Make’ programme for 15 young people in the area.

Over the week, this was a chance to engage young people with design projects and prototypes that helped tackle social action issues like racism and climate change.

A snap from our Jump Studios team welcoming a couple of young people to the week of sessions.

14 Young People Kickstarting their Arts Award

14 young people have made the exciting step to kick off their arts award. The award is a nationally recognised qualification enabling the young people to progress into further education and employment.

We cannot wait to see how the journeys to get their Bronze Arts Award progress and what they will learn.

12 Creatives Supported

As part of Eight, we have managed to get 12 emerging creatives paid work to support them in the creative industries.

For examples, our recent project with Filwood Fantastic involved the two amazing creatives: Monica Tuffs and Keira Needham.

Check in with us later in 2021 for our next impact report.

Keep up to date with our journey by following Jump Studios on Instagram and Twitter.

Jump Studios Stories: Millicent Grant

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We sat down and spoke with musician Millicent Grant about her experiences with Jump Studios and how they have impacted her life.

We first met Millie when she joined our Change Creators programme and formed the social action group Hack a Heckle.

In this group, she went on the streets of Barcelona to perform and challenge street harassment.

The social-action music group Hack a Heckle.

After this experience, she also joined our Sound Wave retreat to meet and collaborate with other musicians.

Watch the video now if you want to hear about her experiences about becoming a musician and how her time with Jump Studios has impacted her.

If you would like to see what Millicent has been up, you can follow her on Instagram.

Keep up to date with our journey by following Jump Studios on Instagram and Twitter.

Jump Studios has reopened its doors…

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A group of young people gather before a ‘Creative Hub’ session on Wednesday afternoons.

As of Monday 19th April, Jump Studios has opened the door again to young people to enjoy the after-school sessions!

We’re back!

This week was special as it marked the first time of 2021 that we opened our doors for young people.

Facilitator Jack and Will assisting three young people on laptops.

Since March 2020, we’ve had to change something we did almost every day at Jump Studios; we’ve stopped being able to deliver after-school sessions in person.

We recently talked about what that experience has been like and how we dealt with the changes, if you want to check out that blog post. But for now, the recent changes in the COVID guidelines meant that we can have young people back in the media centre.

How does it work in-line with the COVID guidelines?

To put it simply, caution!

The current government guidelines allowed us to open our doors from the 8th of March, but with the Easter break looming, we decided it was best to begin the next stage when we had found our feet a little more.

Three young people arriving for the after-school sessions, all wearing masks.

Firstly, we are all regularly tested.

Every member of staff on the Jump Studios team are tested regularly, whether before or during work. This is not just including those working directly with the young people.

In the Jump Studios team, we prefer to use the tests from home before we come into the office each morning.

Secondly, we distance out activities and keep strict guidance on how many young people and staff can be in a room at one time.

Three young people on desks spaced apart at the beginning of a session.

Whilst it does make you wonder whether you’re in an episode of Black Mirror at times, the enforced distancing between us is a necessary hurdle in reopening our doors.

Even in our large studio, where we would once have 30+ young people running wild – we now have brought that right back to a maximum of 6 young people and 2 facilitators.

Thirdly, we wear masks.

It’ll come as no surprise to find that, when you’re not completely in your own space, you are wearing a mask.

That applies for the young people, staff and parents.

A young person wearing a mask during a ‘Maker City’ session.

How has it gone?

This week saw us run Control Alt Delete on Monday afternoon, Maker City on Tuesday afternoon and Creative Hub on Wednesday afternoon.

It has been amazing to let young people back in through the doors and, whilst it is only the beginning, we can already feel a slight buzz around the place.

Knowle West Media Centre is a place that was designed to be a hub for creativity and technology, so it has felt very close to our values.

We’re aware that it must be difficult for the young people, who have to uphold these strange measures throughout their whole day at school before coming to the after-school sessions, but we genuinely get the feeling that the space that we create for them is a return they welcome.

Youth programmer for Maker City, Clara, says: I feels so refreshing to be back in the space with the young people! Especially seeing them create stickers and take them home! 

Youth programmer for Control Alt Delete and Creative Hub, Mike, says: It has been so great being back at KWMC. We’ve missed all of the young people and can’t wait to deliver exciting (and safe!) activities with them.

Here’s to next week and many, many more to come!

Youth facilitator Jack, playing guitar with young people.

How do after-school sessions work in lockdown?

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For the best part of the last year, our work with young people has been stripped back from a vibrant and collaborative setting in our centre to over Microsoft Teams. But how are we doing it?

Back in January 2020, we had just started another term of our projects that help young people engage in technologies and the arts.

Maker City school session with Artist Megan Clark-Bagnall delivering a social action masterclass.

But like most other things, that came to an abrupt stop in March when the national lockdown was announced. So what changed and how have we adapted?

The start

All of our sessions up to this point had been in person, where we could interact and support young people wherever we could. It was incredible to be able to see the buzz of creativity the sessions created with the young people.

But that was no longer an option.

From when the lockdown came into place in March through to May, we were finding our own feet with the new virtual world and we needed to know what was needed in the community.

We contacted all of the young people that attended our sessions and their guardians to see what they needed from us. These were unprecedented times (as I’m sure you heard a million and one times in March of 2020) and we wanted to make sure we were doing the right thing.

But the need to keep the after-school sessions going in an online format was clear, therefore we pushed on with the shift to virtual sessions.

How did we adapt in the first virtual sessions?

Our facilitators, Jack, Rapha and Mike during a virtual session.

It’ll come as no surprise to hear that we didn’t hit the ground running. This was new to us as it was the young people. So what issues did we notice?

‘Virtual Fatigue’

We realised that the young people were on their computers all day at school. They were going a full-day in front of a monitor, before coming for an extra hour and a half with us. It was intense.

How did we address this? We encouraged as many breaks as necessary. Whether this meant taking a cup of tea or just going outside for five minutes, any breaks were encouraged to get young people away from screens.

Zoom VS Mircosoft Teams

Zoom was very popular – but was deemed insecure, so there was an organisation-wide decision to not use Zoom and for all sessions to be on Teams. This was problematic as Teams was not as accessible. No breakout rooms, only four cameras on the screen at a time and the chat function is clunky. Zoom seemed so much easier to use!

How did we address this? Well, we persevered! Trying to make sessions as engaging as possible and use different apps to keep the sessions interesting. Luckily, Teams has now upped its game, with breakout rooms, can see more people on the screen and more reactions!

Not being able to reach as many young people

We were missing the element of working in schools. Pre-COVID, we would work in up to four local schools a week which meant we were working with a much wider range of young people and were able to support teachers and young people in school through arts, tech and music as part of their extra-curricular activities.

How did we address this? We spoke with teachers and developed new ways to support them and the young people who are still in school (vulnerable and key worker children). This led to the development of a new way of working: semi-virtually. We would work with the teacher to be able to deliver engaging, creative activities to pupils in school through Teams. Essentially, the Jump Studios Team were virtually in the classroom!

In 2021, we have really started to get into the swing of things with our sessions and we are only going to get better. Whilst it isn’t the perfect situation for creativity and collaboration, we are still really happy with the progress the young people make.

How are we finding it?

A look at what it has been like for the programmers that run the sessions.

Mike Moast: Control Alt Del, Creative Hub & Sound Wave.

The last 12 months has been a whirlwind to say the least. We have all tried to find our own feet in all of the uncertainty the past year has thrown at us, and that includes all of the young people that we work with. They have shown great resilience through the pandemic, school closures and national lockdowns. They have also tackled our sessions being adapted to be delivered online, to socially distanced sessions and back online again with the same resilience and tenacity.

Last year we took a deep dive into the world of virtual sessions, which was quite daunting at first as we have never done anything like that before, but knowing that young people had an appetite for it spurred as to deliver a great virtual programme. As we couldn’t rely on the kit that we have at Knowle West Media Centre, we have had to think creatively as to how we deliver our programme using free and accessible online tools.

Control Alt Delete has been a space for young people to explore coding and new tech, moving everything online did not stop that! It has been great trying different activities from Hour of Code, Google Experiments to Sonic Pi. We’ve seen some amazing 3D designs being made on TinkerCAD and incredible 2D designs on Sketchpad. My highlight so far though has to be playing Skribbl with young people when we ran our virtual gaming evening (and yes, I lost).

Exploring the arts and music making in Creative Hub and Sound Wave brought tremendous amounts of fun. Young people used online digital design tools like Canva to design their own logos and posters, making pixel characters and animations on Piskel and creating fantastic edits on Pixlr. Our young musicians have also been busy learning, writing and recording songs using SoundTrap, blessing our ears with new and exciting music!

Through all of this we have also developed new ways of working collaboratively with each other. From using the ‘collaborate’ button on SoundTrap to work together on a track or a podcast, to using Jamboard to collectively imagine and draw a new and exciting community.

If the last 12 months have taught us anything it’s that even in a virtual world, through creativity and imagination, we can still make great connections. – Mike

Clara Collett: Maker City.

This past year has been immensely challenging for everyone, especially young people who have missed a considerable amount of time at school and activities that they would usually be taking part in. This has meant that young people have not been able to get the same support from teachers and facilitators that they would usually have readily available to them or been able to socialise with friends and build general life skills that come with social interaction.

Despite all of this, the young people that have been engaging with our virtual sessions at Jump Studios have shown a huge amount of resilience and flexibility and have been able to adapt to a new work of working really well. They have been the driving force that has kept us going through the long lockdowns! It has been great to learn a new work of working together; the young people are so well equipped these days and their tech-savvy knowledge has definitely fueled our sessions!

During virtual Maker City, the young people have been able to continue building their digital making skills, and practice digital design and prototyping from their homes. They have had to problem-solve more because sometimes it is not possible to help from the other side of the screen. I have seen a great deal of peer to peer support and young people sharing their experiences of how to fix something that might not be working, and a general consensus that they are all in this together, creating a community feel.

The young people have been able to continue conversations around social action, the things they are passionate about and what changes they want to see in their communities. Now more than ever, it is even more important for young people to have a say and be able to be the change-makers they dream of being! Our virtual Maker City sessions have provided a space for young people to contextualise events that have happened over the past year. It has become a space to discuss how the pandemic is affecting their lives, time for them to reflect on the Black Lives Matter protests that happened in May 2020, and a safe environment to be able to discuss racism and inequalities. They have been able to ponder questions around climate change and think about what young people like themselves can do to make a positive change for their futures.

Amongst all the changes that the young people have had to navigate this past year, I am privileged to have been able to embark on a journey into a new virtual way of communicating, connecting and creating through what has been the toughest year yet! – Clara

With the end potentially in sight, we wanted to look back on what lockdown has been like for the young people in Bristol.

Whether later this year we return to some level of “normality”, it is great feeling knowing that we have adapted to survive in the pandemic.

Thank you for reading.

If you want to talk to us more for information on how we run things or you’d like information about our sessions, please drop us an email at jumpstudios@kwmc.org.uk.