The Clapham Festival of Music and the Arts
education and outreach
The Clapham Festival of Music & the Arts (Cla'am Fest) was created to organise annually in Clapham, a festival for music and the arts, promoting education and fostering community spirit and service in Lambeth.
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| welcome > Education and Outreach
Education and Outreach - outreach for schools and the wider community  

"The most effective way to make the world a better place is through education that shapes the future rather than reflects the past. By undercutting fundamentalism, education curtails violence and war. By empowering women, education curbs poverty and population. The curriculum should shift from one watered down by consensus and lobbying to skills our century needs - for relationships, health, contraception, time management, critical thinking and recognising propaganda. For youngsters, learning a global language and typing should trump long division and writing cursive. The most important goal of all should be to inspire curiosity and the desire to learn more."
Max Tegmark, cosmologist, MIT

The Clapham Festival of Music and the Arts will have an extensive Education and Outreach Programme which gives schools and the wider community the chance not only to attend concerts, events, forums, conferences and workshops which tie up with Festival themes, but to create special events for the Festival itself. Revolving around local schools, the Festival run projects with youth theatre groups, homes for the elderly and centres for those with special needs.

The Festival opens up opportunities for adult, as well as youth, amateur singers and instrumental and orchestral players to work with the Composer-in-Residence. Like the Clapham Festival Orchestra, education work runs all year round, with projects linked to the Festival. Schools are encouraged to attend the seasonal Clapham Festival Orchestra concert series.

Education projects are included around each of these concert events. There are several different, exciting ways to sponsor; either through a donation to the overall Programme, the support of a particular project, actual involvement in a project, or through the Access Ticket schemes which promote accessibility and help a wider audience to experience Festival events.

Sponsors can become involved as much or as little as they choose. As a sponsor, you will be accredited both in the Festival Brochure, highlighted and interviewed editorially in the Festival Magazine and in specific Education and Outreach print and promotion, along with other Festival sponsorship benefits.

"The key to a better future for the entire world population lies in giving priority to the development of human capabilities. The immediate priority must be universal primary and secondary educatioan - all children in school at least through to age 15 - everywhere in the world. New research shows that this generally leads to better health, higher economic growth and in the long run better government. This calls for a radical reorientation of our development strategies: shift the focus from giving money
to developing minds!"
Wolfgang Lutz, academic and author of many books on population and development

ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT ACTIVITIES OF CLA'AM FEST EDUCATION AND OUTREACH PROGRAMME is to:

  • Introduce art and music (all music is song and dance) in schools in order to make all children sensitive to the arts from the earliest age.

  • This participation thereby is instrumental in the prevention of violence, racism and social exclusion, through the opening to various cultures and the awakening of each child's creative potential.

  • music and art should be part and parcel of daily education and should be acessible to everybody.

This creed must form an inalienable part of community.The protector has the responsibility, the protected the right; the powerful is the teacher, the informed, the skilled. The student, the pupil, the passenger, the guest, the patient, the sick and the poor have the right. All humanity should be trusted with responsibility.

A person's worth is not dependent on whether he or she is Formally employed or unemployed. Every person is important and carries equal title to rights and responsibilities.

These rights include the right to life-long education, shelter, food, health and medical needs, dress, hobbies, crafts, specialties, music, art, sculpture, poetry, theatre, sport, holidays, locomotion, free time - as long as there is no harm done to themselves, family, neighbour or society. If harm occurs, society be protected, and the perpetrator helped.

The responsibilities would include the obligation to help, to serve, to teach, to learn, and to work in reciprocity with others.

The freedom beyond these rights and responsibilities, is the freedom of choice to scale the ladder of achievement as high as possible, as imaginatively and as resourcefully as the talent and ambition of each one will allow them.

This is economy, creative living, social order, the arts and education, rolled into one platform for thought and action.

CLA'AM FEST FUNDAMENTAL EDUCATION AND OUTREACH PRINCIPLES

  • The arts help the individual develop his capacity to overcome and transcend ordeals, developing additional skills as a result.

  • The practice of the arts is a source of access to knowledge that is based in experience. The arts stimulate the pleasure of discovery, curiosity, interest and access to other fields of knowledge.

  • The arts, especially singing and dance, restores the body to the soul and the soul to the body, the emotions to the mind and the mind to the emotions.

  • Artistic expression creates new relations with ourselves, our community and the outside world.

  • Discovering the traditions of his region of origin enables the child to rediscover a cultural heritage that has sometimes been forgotten among migrants and the all-to-common. over-exposure to money-oriented pop culture.

  • Through the arts, connective links can be forged between the individual and various cultures. Artistic creation contributes to the establishment of a common culture and reinforces community spirit and the feeling of belonging.

  • The arts are tools for the development of self-respect and respect for others.

  • The arts can contribute to the development of social dynamics based on interdependency.

  • The arts and school can mutually enrich one another.

CLA'AM FEST EDUCATION AND OUTREACH PROGRAMME is based on three precepts:

  1. Although the "child is father of the man", the child is not a miniature adult: he is a human being going through a development process, whose specificities it is essential to respect. We give priority to an investment in the area of rhythm, space, sensory perceptions, play and the imaginary. We are in favour of learning through practical experience.

  2. The arts should not be separated from life and consequently from education. The arts are essential to the development of the child. It is thanks to these tools that the child can discover his or her own creative resources which will help him or her work out new solutions to old problems.

  3. The arts are ideal communication tools. They do not force any specific meaning upon anyone. They are a means of access to various cultures with a view to promoting and encouraging opening and openness, the establishment of links and the learning of difference. This gives the arts an essential role in education about multiculturalism.

FIELDS OF ACTION

The CLA'AM FEST EDUCATION AND OUTREACH programme is intended for all children. it targets children living in districts where there are important risks of social exclusion and where schools have to cope with multiculturalism and acute societal problems. It takes places at school in order to reach as many children as possible.

The objective is to introduce all children – at nursery and primary school levels – to various forms of art (music, singing, dance, plastic arts, dramatic art) in an active fashion, and this should be done in depth, over time, by professional artists belonging to different cultures and in the presence of the children's teachers.

This initiation aims at combating violence, racism and social exclusion by developing capacities for tolerance, recognition of the cultures represented and collective work during CLA'AM FEST activities. It strengthens links between children, between children and teachers, between children and their neighbourhood. Moreover, CLA'AM FEST is(will be) established at a European and international level, which makes it possible to create contacts between children, artists and teachers from all the countries or regions taking part in the programme.

Three fields are interconnected by this programme: the artistic, pedagogical and social fields.

  1. The artistic field: The arts, which often get reduced to the minimum in the school curriculum or in practice, is a powerful tool for awakening the curiosity for learning, stimulating the knowledge of others and their culture and promoting collective work. Music, the "mother of all the arts" has been proven to profoundly affect the brain's ability to become literate and numerate in speed and depth of understanding. By awakening children's creativity, their capacities for resilience are developed, that is their capacities for overcoming the problems linked to difficult living conditions.

  2. The pedagogical field: an artistic approach within the framework of these schools brings a plus which helps children invest more in school as a place for having access to knowledge and socialization. It also helps teachers to discover a different pedagogy. Priority is given to taking into account what is important for children, their capacities, their level of development and their cultural diversity. The pedagogy of the CLA'AM FEST EDUCATION AND OUTREADH programme is based on the assumption that children have their own form of knowledge and culture and if this can be enhanced at school, it truly makes the school into a place for socialization. The partnership between the teacher and the visiting artist enables the teacher not to be considered and consider himself as the sole holder of knowledge, but as someone that accompanies children on their quest for knowledge. The teacher can also underpin some of the subjects on the curriculum with what the children have experienced during a CLA'AM FEST activity.

  3. The social field: CLA'AM FEST EDUCATION AND OUTREACH targets children for whom there are risks of social exclusion; the schools concerned are located in areas in which various cultures are represented, with specific problems linked to cultural mutation. The schools should be located in neighbourhoods where children have no access to artistic education. We make a bet on the existence of a wealth of resources and potentialities in these so-called difficult schools, which can be enhanced by developing suitable projects. Studies show that parents living in poor districts have a negative view of school; what the children produce outside modifies this view and leads to an investment in the school environment.

ACTION OF CLA'AM FEST EDUCATION AND OUTREACH PROGRAMME

In CLA'AM FEST schools and classes, a minimum of 10% of the weekly schedule of lessons is devoted to CLA'AM FEST activities, which are conducted by visiting artists in the presence of teachers. These artists open up a field in which artistic experiences are possible. Children can thus discover their own creative potential and express it within group dynamics. The CLA'AM FEST programme is set within the pedagogical project of the schools concerned for a period of at least three years. It is particularly important to work over a long enough period of time.

INTERNATIONAL DIMENSION

CLA'AM FEST EDUCATION AND OUTREACH RESEARCH AND ETHICS COMMITTEE

The primary objective of this Committee is to study and research the content and ethics of the CLA'AM FEST EDUCATION AND OUTREACH programme as well as setting up an evolutionary, efficient scheme adapted to each context, region and type of school. Its main lines are:

  • creating efficient models for introducing the programme;

  • evaluating phase 1 of the pilot project;

  • creating a model for the continuous evaluation of phase 2, which includes the evaluation of the consistency of the programme (adequacy between means and objectives), its relevance (adequacy with the realities encountered) and its results;

  • establishing an international CLA'AM FEST Documentation Centre;

  • creating an Internet and Intranet network as a creation/training tool for all those involved in the programme;

  • promoting research based on the programme;

  • promoting training.

CLA'AM FEST EDUCATION AND OUTREACH RESEARCH AND ETHICS COMMITTEE currently has four members, who all operate in the field under the CLA'AM FEST EDUCATION AND OUTREACH PROGRAMME. They come from at least three different participating countries and their skills relate to the three fields of action of the CLA'AM FEST EDUCATION AND OUTREACH programme (artistic,pedagogical and social).

CLA'AM FEST EDUCATION AND OUTREACH RESEARCH AND ETHICS COMMITTEE is a standing committee. Local, national and international reports should be sent to the committee. A work programme is determined on an annual basis and the various responsibilities allocated. Members meet four times a year.

Annual CLA'AM FEST EDUCATION AND OUTREACH RESEARCH AND ETHICS COMMITTEE seminar.

This seminar gathers together all those involved in the CLA'AM FEST EDUCATION AND OUTREACH programme for a five-day period: artists, teachers, school heads, coordinators, CLA'AM FEST members, children and their families, speakers and outside artists.

The seminar is the main place for swapping knowledge about the programme. It is therefore most important for the training of the artists conducting CLA'AM FEST EDUCATION AND OUTREACH activities.

These seminars make it possible to compare national developments and the results obtained as well as drawing up new lines of action. It contributes to the development of partnerships for projects. The content of the seminar is prepared by the CLA'AM FEST EDUCATION AND OUTREACH RESEARCH AND ETHICS COMMITTEE team.

"The world would be a better place if everybody learned to think like scientists. I don't mean they should know more science, although that would be nice too. I mean that everybody should base their beliefs upon evidence, and be highly suspicious of any beliefs that are not based on evidence."
Richard Dawkins, evolutionary biologist, University of Oxford

For further information contact us or contact stephen@claamfest.org . Cla'am Fest is all about Community Spirit & Service.

 
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