Trailblazer
Digital Academy

WheelWorks Trailblazer Digital Academy works with Primary School children to explore Good Relations issues while learning new digital and tech-based creative skills.

2021/22 was the 4th successful year of the programme and we worked with approximately 120 children between the ages of 7 and 10 across two projects with partner schools in Lisburn, Co Down (Ballymacash Primary, St Aloysius Primary) and in Dungannon, Co Tyrone (Howard Primary, Edendork Primary).

Trailblazer is all about developing cultural understanding through storytelling using digital arts, namely filmmaking and animation. The good relations theme is embedded throughout the process and the young people discuss the importance of kindness and community. With animation they can draw and bring to life anything that they can imagine! The filmmaking is always so much fun, the young people don’t realise that they are learning so many new skills in teamwork, literacy, and leadership in the process.

Cross-community connection  

The Trailblazer Digital Academy is built around four cross-community events when pupils can come together and build new friendships. Due to ongoing Covid-19 restrictions across the education sector, we had to come up with some creative ways to build virtual and online engagement. For example;

In both projects, ‘About Me’ Portraits were created at the welcome event and each pupil introduced themselves and their self-portrait via a Zoom call with the partner school sharing something unique about themselves.

In Dungannon we played a specially adapted version of the ‘two truths and one lie’ game across the screens so our participants had to listen carefully to learn lots about each other in the process.

In Lisburn, each class presented hand drawn promotional posters to one another via Zoom before hosting a celebratory “watch party” to see each other’s finished films.

Pupils in Lisburn were fortunate to meet face-to-face for the final celebration event. We headed over to nearby neutral venue, Trinity Methodist Hall, for the first in-person shared education event to take place in over 2 years! We had a “watch party” of the short animations the children had created and played a variety of games which enabled the children to get to know one another, build friendships and develop good relations.

Lisburn  

Shared education partners Ballymacash and St Aloysius Primary Schools got stuck into filmmaking for 8 weeks in the first term. Led by artist/facilitators Matt Farris and Ed Reynolds, the P5 pupils worked in groups to plan, write, direct, shoot, star in and edit their own short films – phew!  Each school made 6 or 7 super creative short films showcasing the diversity possible in a ‘not so typical’ day at school – there were shark attacks and Pokémon hunts, missing teachers, and bullies.  

In January, we moved into another 8-week module taking all that we had learned about storytelling and characterisation with us. This time, children worked in pairs to develop short animations using the theme of superheroes to explore the concept of diversity by celebrating differences and encouraging kindness.

Feedback from the project was overwhelmingly positive:

‘The participation of the teachers has been fantastic and has really meant that the programme to date has been a great success. They have in some cases also integrated additional work into the week between sessions which has really helped the pupils.’  Trailblazer Artist/Facilitator  

 ‘Thank you so much for all your hard work and effort that has been put into the programme. We (both adults and children) have all really enjoyed working with the facilitators and feel the programme has been a fantastic opportunity to build confidence, self-esteem and teamwork within our class.’  Class Teacher  

‘We made this, and it is awesome!’ - Pupils, Ballymacash Primary School

‘We learned lots about sharing and agreeing... we had to think and plan as a group to make our projects, so we learned lots of teamwork skills in the process.’ – Pupil

‘Animation was really fun to learn ... so was acting which I never did before. I loved it and it helped me gain confidence.’ - Pupil

‘I'm feeling really good because I'm excited to be here and make friends with people from another school.’ - Pupil, St Alis at Celebration event

Dungannon  

Howard and Edendork Primary Schools are shared education partners, located on opposite sides of Dungannon town. Led by WheelWorks artist/facilitators Gwen Stevenson and Jenny Finnegan, these P4 classes kicked off with animation in the first term. Working in pairs, they used their project notebooks and the flipaclip app on the iPads to develop animated characters and short stories.

8 weeks of filmmaking skills development sessions ran in both schools from January to March 2022. Children were placed in groups of 6 to 8 to work as a team to write, shoot, act and edit their own short film. Artist/facilitators worked closely with class teachers to ensure children created a ‘moral’ for their story with fitted with the good relations themes. This included morals such as ‘don’t judge a book by its cover’ and reinforced the good relations messages around diversity and inclusion.

We got great feedback from everyone involved in the project – let’s look at what they said:

‘Pupils have really enjoyed the animation sessions and are always very excited about the artists coming in. One pupil said that she loved animation so much, it was the best thing that ever happened to her. Another said that she wanted to work in animation and film like Jenny. Teachers have been very encouraging and have seemed very appreciative of the work that we are doing.’  Trailblazer Artist/Facilitator  

‘A great opportunity for pupils to learn some new skills. Pupils really enjoyed using the flipaclip app and some of them went home and downloaded to their devices.’  Class Teacher   

‘I love Trailblazers so much – Jenny and Gwen help us make animations and I love everything about it!’  Pupil, Howard Primary   

‘The filmmaking module presented natural leaders in groups and brought out teamwork and cooperation among them. Kids that previously seemed shy loved seeing themselves on screen and you could see their confidence build!’ - Artist/Facilitator

And from the pupils:

‘I learned to work with new people in class and get to act with them’

"I’m better friends now with Ryan’

‘I got to know other people in the classes better’

‘Learned to include everyone while working as a group’

‘I've learned - listening, kindness, planning and teamwork’

‘I made some new friends and learned how animation works’

‘Learned about being kind and making new friends’

Conclusion

Trailblazer Digital Academy created a safe space in the classrooms for discussion and exploration of social issues such as prejudice, racism, diversity, community, and culture. The use of animation and filmmaking as storytelling media encouraged the young minds to embrace good relations and kindness in a creative and fun way.  Hands on and practical activities have been the most effective method of engagement as children learn by doing. Overall, the project has been hailed a wonderful success by all partners. Schools have made a commitment to bring both classes together again in another shared education project next year to build on the work from this year.

Outcomes from the programme included:

-          Increased community understanding and tolerance for participants.

-          Improved communication skills, teamwork, and patience.

-          Over 90% of pupils felt the project gave them new skills and increased confidence.

-          4 class teachers were equipped with new creative storytelling skills which can be integrated with other aspects of the curriculum.

-          4 schools received a full set of digital equipment (an iPad, tripod, microphone, and boom pole) so that they could continue to apply the skills learned on the project.

The programme is supported by the Executive Office’s Central Good Relations Fund delivering under the ‘Together: Building a United Community’ Strategy, which is working to improve community relations across NI as we build on our commitment to move towards a more united and shared community.