Innovate 2023-24 project evaluation
Innovate is Sound Connections’ annual investment programme to support music projects with young people aged 0-25. Last year, the programme provided investment of £8,000 across four projects to explore new ideas and approaches to working with children and young people.
*Applications are now open for our 2024-25 Innovate programme. Apply now to receive £2,000 towards your project.*
Our 2023-24 projects have just wrapped up and we’re pleased to release a summary of the feedback and evaluation following each project.
TransForm Rhymes
Gigi Lam, Little Bean Theatre, Isle of Wight
TransForm Rhymes was an Early Years gender-inclusive practice music-making project which celebrates diversity and empowers other practitioners to do so. Innovate funding enabled Gigi Lam and Little Bean Theatre to explore and promote inclusive Early Years education by emphasizing diversity and empowering individuality, thereby challenging gender norms.
A series of workshops supported Early Years educators from the Isle of Wight and Southampton in creating inclusive environments within their settings. By focusing on music-making and songwriting, we explored the values of early years education that matter to the practitioners. Practitioners were encouraged to compose songs inspired by the social stories of their children or settings. Additionally, Little Bean Theatre collaborated with Gendered Intelligence to provide gender awareness training. The songs will be made available publicly in July.
This project has helped Little Bean develop gender awareness, which is new and not yet embedded in the cultural background of the majority of team members. The project also led us to consider how we can continue this project and capture children's voices. In the next phrase, we are hoping to recruit children as co-producers of the project, allowing them to work alongside us in exploring issues.
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Lascars Tales & Sea Shanties
Laila Sumpton, Poetry vs Colonialism, Newham, London
Poet and folk singer Laila Sumpton from Poetry Vs Colonialism and Bengali folk singer and musician Gouri Choudhury worked with pupils aged 7-11 from Gallions Primary School in Newham to explore the hidden stories of the Lascar Sailors, skilled sailors mainly from the Indian subcontinent who were employed on British ships from the 17th century onwards, using archive materials the pupils researched their dangerous voyages, cruel working conditions and how they lived and eventually settled in East London.
Laila and Gouri collaborated with choir leader Emma Cornet to work with the school’s choir of 47 pupils to rewrite two sea shanties and learn a Bengali river racing song called ‘Nao Chariya De’ – all in four workshops! Using their research the children wrote new lyrics for ‘Nelson’s Blood’ and ‘Haul Away Joe’, and performed and recorded them at their school concert with much energy! The songs with the pupil’s new lyrics have also been recorded by the London Sea Shanty Collective – who loved this retelling of history. The pupils were compassionate in their approach to the prejudice, racism and discrimination they found in their historical research and wrote moving lyrics. The project gave young people an opportunity to learn about their local history and share their cultural knowledge with each other.
I have learnt about the Lascars! I didn’t know anything about their history at all and it’s so relevant not only to the Beckton area but our collective history. Overall the whole project was excellent and inspiring to see how history and music can be linked in such an engaging way for the children.
Emma Cornett - Music Teacher and Choir Leader, Gallions Primary School
This project has ignited several new partnerships and future opportunities and shown the interest in the subject matter, musical content and methodology. It means we can pursue these opportunities with confidence having improved facilitation and workshop skills. The recordings and resources will help us showcase this project and seek further chances to make learning spaces for this diverse history.
Laila Sumpton - Poetry Vs Colonialism co-founder
YMP Peer to Peer Project
Laura Brewis, We Make Culture, Sunderland
We Make Culture CIC piloted YMP (Young Musicians Project) Peer to Peer, which has supported older members of their YMP to develop facilitation and leadership skills. Working with experienced community musician Ashleigh Lowes, five young people developed knowledge of topics such as safeguarding, inclusion and youth voice, developed session plans, shadowed a variety of music sessions and delivered their own mini-sessions reaching a further 74 young people in a variety of settings from Early Years to SEND. WMC worked in partnership with Sunderland Music Hub and Portland Academy to place the young leaders in different settings.
Thank you for this opportunity, it has been really great and I have learned to do some things that I didn’t think I’d be able to do.
Participant
This project has been integral to WMC’s ongoing thinking and planning about progression routes for the young people they work with and has given them the opportunity to both try something new and carry out some close consultation with young people from YMP who are keen to continue to work with WMC. The results of the pilot will inform WMC’s practice across projects, supporting their ambition to build youth leadership across project delivery, and build innovative and impactful opportunities for more young people.
Innovate funding has allowed us space to focus on progression for our young people and, by being able to test out a project in the real world, we’ve been able to build the next stage of the project with the participants. We now have a “draft” progression framework for YMP and will be seeking funding to take it forward. We’re also creating our first paid Peer Music Leader role as a direct result of this project.
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DnA & Connected Youth Music Sessions
Leone Rose, Connected Youth, Hillingdon, London
Connected Youth CIC supports care-experienced and at-risk young people. This youth led project came about as an idea from a few of their young people. Three of their youth members were supported by a mentor to design and deliver music sessions for other care experienced young people over a period of 12 weeks. 10 young people engaged in the programme learning the guitar, piano, drums and music production, leading to a community event for other care experience young people in March. Little Acorn Services and Uxbridge College collaborated on the project.
Innovate funding has enabled us to support our young people in developing their music leading skills and helped build their confidence. This is the first time that our young people have taken an active and autonomous role in any of our projects. We are now looking at how we can deliver similar projects that are inclusive and that give our young people an opportunity to develop their ideas and leadership skills, and interact with other young people.
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Innovate 2024-25
Applications are now open for Innovate 2024-25. Apply now to receive £2,000 towards your project.
Deadline for applications: Monday 15 July 2024, 9am.
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