Creatives

Jump Studios In Schools

December 17, 2022 by Cashell Smith

Maker City at Oasis Academy Connaught

We had the pleasure of running Maker City with the year 6’s at Oasis Academy Connaught this school term.

Maker City is a STEAM (science, tech, engineering, arts and maths) programme aimed at inspiring young people to design and create products using state-of-the-art technology such as laser cutters, 3D printers and sticker machines. We focus on collaboration, creative problem solving and social action to work together to design something that would be useful for ourselves and our community!

It is amazing for us to be able to meet young people in their school environment and offer a different approach to education; broaden their horizons and show them what is available in their local area and how they can be involved.

For the school sessions, we brought iMacs, drawing tablets, and robots to work with. At the end of the term, we bought the young people to KWMC The Factory where they could see their work being made using our other equipment, have a tour of the space, and get stuck in with our hands-on engineering activities.

Sound Wave at Parsons Street Primary School

This term we have run three Sound Wave taster sessions at Parsons Street Primary School with two year 6 classes. We were able to bring in percussive instruments and laptops for the young people to use in the sessions. In our first session, we kicked things off by playing a conducting game where everyone in the class would have a piece of percussion and one young person would come to the front to conduct the room. They could affect when people played and how loud or quiet, they played their instrument. The enthusiasm from the year 6 classes was great to see and we had multiple volunteers all wanting to have a go at conducting.

We introduced the young people to composing and creating their own music using loops on Garageband. In a short period of time, the young people showed their amazing creativity and quickly took to building their own songs with loops and were really excited to show the rest of the class what they had been working on in the session.

Our Sound Wave taster school sessions have also included young people creating their own podcasts! In these sessions, the young people worked in groups to come up with a theme for their podcast, something that they are passionate about or want to talk about. Then after some planning, and writing down a few key points they moved on to recording their podcast on software such as Garageband or Sound Trap. They also looked at creating some theme music or a jingle for their podcast which could be from loops or recording an instrument. Again, we saw amazing creativity from the year 6 classes at Parsons Street and a willingness to share their work with us which we always love to see at the end of sessions.

If you are interested in having any of our sessions at your school, please contact jump@kwmc.org.uk.

If you are interested in signing up for any of our after-school sessions or have any questions, please follow this link or email jumpstudios@kwmc.org.uk.

The New Term Begins!

May 5, 2022 by Clara Collett

As we welcome young people back for a new term at Jump Studios, we thought we’d let you know what our first week looked like. Following on from last term’s theme ‘Mental Health and Wellbeing’, this term we will be focusing on ‘The Celebration of Community!

Maker City

We kicked off Maker City this term with Sphero Mazes…

The young people worked collaboratively to decide on their interpretations of a ‘new Bristol’. They created new rules, such as everyone must be kind and everyone gets free bus fare. They also decided on some new landmarks and then prototyped their new city using scrap material. From there, they began to use Sphero robots to navigate around their new cities, allowing them to discuss what change they would like to see. Finally, they tried their hand at ‘Tinkercad’, using their new cities as inspiration to learn 3D design.

*Young people creating their own cities for the Spheros to navigate through*

Control Alt Delete & Creative Hub

The group shared their favourite celebrations and festivals throughout the world. They carried out self-led research around a different celebration they did not know about already; from a different culture, religion or historical time. The group then used to learn ‘Canva’ and created posters and PowerPoints which advertised an event for their chosen celebration. At the end of the session, the group presented their work and shared their research findings with the rest of the group.

Young people researching various celebrations

Sound Wave

This week at Sound Wave, we welcomed some new young people to Knowle West Media Centre and we also had some familiar faces return. In our 10 – 16 group, we went over what we do at Sound Wave. This meant young people were able to try out different instruments in a group jam and then use ‘Soundtrap‘ loops to create their own piece of music and share it with the group.

In Sound Wave +, we looked at writing a song from a group jam and then continuing to refine or add sections to it as we progressed throughout the section. The young people really showed off their creativity after writing something in under an hour and the exciting part is that this is only the foundation of what they will be working on in the coming weeks.

Check out the video below to see Jump Studios in action!

If you want to find out more about how young people can get involved in any of our programmes, click ‘here‘ to find our registration form!

Our Impact from November 2020 to March 2021

May 12, 2021 by Scott Piggott

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.

Our February 2021 Half-Term: Young People Can Make (Virtually)!

February 25, 2021 by Scott Piggott

This half-term, we hosted a series of activities for Young People to get them engaging creatively and engaging with social issues. Over the course of three days, the 10-16 year olds discussed how they want to see their communities change, they learnt design skills, created socially active prototypes and even recorded their own podcast.

What did they get up to?

Just in case you weren’t aware, it’s not particularly easy right now to host our usual half-term programmes in person. So, we’ve adapted to holding the sessions over Microsoft Teams.

At the start of the week, each young person was sent a pack to try and keep them away from their screens for as long as possible – considering how many hours per day of screen-time they are having right now.

*A peak at what was in some of the packs we sent out to the young people.*

The first day was all about opening up the discussions for change.

What changes do the young people want to see in their communities?

Imagine the communities you’re in right now. What changes would you like to see?

“BE POSITIVE not negative” and “UP THE ANTI” stood out as some really positive messaging from the discussions the young people had on the changes they want to see in their communities.

There was strong dialogue around issues in the environment and different forms of discrimination, which really shows just how encouraging the next generation is.

Our second group really focused on environmental issues as their main piece of conversation, which is no surprise considering how big a topic it is today.

Whilst they talked about the need for renewable energy, it was also nice to hear a desire for new places where young people can socialise with one another.

Their Prototypes

With the discussions ongoing, the young people began creating their prototypes that could make a difference.

Here are just a short selection of the prototypes we saw…

A renewable, fit-bit style watch prototype that aims to keep you active.

A 3D Model of a Tea Bag aiming to make them more renewable.

A prototype of a petrol station with no petrol, only renewable electric energy.

But how did they find it?

This was only a sneak-peak of everything the young people got up to during half-term, but how did they find it?

It was really great to see just how much they enjoyed it.

It’s never going to be an ideal situation when they have to sit in their own rooms, rather than be in a creative and engaging environment, but to hear that they are still inspired and having fun is a fantastic sign.