Imagine Festival at Southbank!
Last Friday we were at the Why! Festival at Southbank Centre. It was a festival dedicated to young people. It had stalls, workshops, concerts and debates. It was a way of getting to know other charities and exchange ideas and points of view.It also was an opportunity to tell other people/groups who we are and what we do. Smart School Councils had a stall, where we had our handbooks, leaflets, etc.
One crucial part of Smart Schools Councils Community (@SSCCTY) is the interactive side of teaching children and teachers the skills to run their school councils. This was something we tried to recreate to be part of our stall at the Imagine Festival.
Leila’s favourite Smart School Councils game is ‘see –run- do’. This is based around transmitting a picture from one end of the room to the other without the drawer or the person that has originally seen it communicating with each other. This is of course where the runner comes in. The idea is to highlight how important communication is, but also how we all communicate and see ideas and suggestions in different lights. We usually play at least two rounds of this game so that we can ask the teachers or children what they’ve learnt from the previous round.
This was especially great to play at Southbank as we could play it with both small and large groups. It is of course good practice with large groups, to learn how to coordinate the three different parts of the game but also keep the game light and fun whilst making sure the learning points are made clear
The game Nuno chose to run was the “Stick game”. It was Nuno’s first time doing it and we all think he did well. The Children seemed very excited with the games we had to offer and were able to understand the point of our games, which is to promote teamwork, communication and trust.
Even though we did have the games to add an interactive side to our stall, we did notice stalls with even more interactivity to their stall than ours. One particular idea we liked was from the stall next door from Participation People @ParticipationPP) who had children taking selfies with pledges of what they would like to achieve by a certain date. As we all know selfies are very much trending at the moment, so many children were keen to get involved, myself included!
It was good to see how we are not the only one in the charity sector striving to make a positive impact in young peoples lives, especially because they are the future. I am grateful for the invitation to the Imagine Festival at South bank as it gave us the chance illustrate the positive work of Smart School Councils. It especially gave us the opportunity to meet other charities and exchange ideas. We received a positive reception from teachers and parents who all appreciated our new more inclusive model of school councils!
Leila, Young Trainee
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