- DREAMING 4 REAL -

In the Loughborough schools (Cobden, Shelthorpe, Rendell), the children wanted to be able to play out more, but felt constrained by the nature of the areas in which they live - lack of facilities or means of using them, limited access to open spaces (issues of safety here also), poor lighting, busy roads, few child-friendly places etc. At Cobden and Rendell, with large Asian populations, there were also cultural constraints/expectations on children’s behaviour, so that many would be expected - especially the girls - to help out in the home. This limits the possibilities of being involved in after school activities. Boys wanted to be able to play more sports.

Children in Birstall were particularly concerned about issues to do with drugs. They were fearful of being approached by ‘druggies’ or ‘druggers’ as they put it. In their local park and around the Stonehill campus where some of the boys liked to hang out, they were conscious of the fact that there might be ‘dodgy’ characters around.

Similar concerns were also expressed by children in Barrow on Soar and Shelthorpe. Some children in Shelthorpe also expressed their parents’ desires to move away from the estate but knew this was not possible due to lack of finance. Children commonly expressed the desire for ‘at a distance’ childcare in outdoor settings. They wanted to know that they could play safely and could gain parental approval for outdoor play. In Loughborough particularly children expressed concerns at being left alone by parents.

Children at the Saturday club highlighted difficulties of seeing friends outside of school. If children live a distance from each other, this means they are dependant on adults to ferry them around, and parents with their busy lifestyles may not be always able, or willing, to accommodate them.
In Wymeswold, many of the children were involved in after school activities, and many did horse riding or went further afield to Leicester, Loughborough or Nottingham. Parents were obviously better off than some of their counterparts in Loughborough.

Children in Shelthorpe in particular demonstrated a very ‘adult’ appreciation and awareness of planning for the whole community and considering the needs of others. They also expressed how they felt safer playing near to houses where they knew they could turn to adults for help.
Cultural issues were seen as a higher priority by children in areas with larger South Asian populations.

It is important to say that we found that most children were quite content in what they are doing after school but also that in most cases this is because they don’t know of other possibilities. Lots of the children are involved in after-school activities but this has a lot to do with access provided by parents, being able to pay, available transport, knowing what is available and individual family circumstances. Most of the children liked to use leisure facilities but wished they were better equipped. Lots of the children were very interested in playing with other children from different areas if the transport issue wasn’t a problem and this might be something that could be looked at.
Animals and zoos were talked about quite frequently and they would like the opportunity to visit places where they could look at and possibly interact with animals. Another dream that came up a lot was how the children couldn’t play out alone on their street or local parks because it was unsafe. The artists found this very disturbing as from their own childhood they could remember how much fun this was, making up games, playing in dens and using one’s own imagination. They considered this a very important finding, the freedom to play in a safe environment and being able to interact with other children and play games which don’t cost lots of money. One worker asked the question: “How are these children going to learn how to make their own entertainment if they haven’t got the opportunity to at least explore the possibilities of doing so?”

Very large numbers of children expressed the desire for more outdoor play facilities, more adventure, access to swimming, arts and sports activities. Children in a number of areas desired outdoor swimming facilities. many, particularly in and around the Soar Valley live close to large bodies of water. (From previous work we have undertaken with 11 -14 year olds we are aware of similar desires. We are aware of children in this age group taking dinghies on to the River Soar unsupervised and diving into locks). Equally important was access to friends, more parental time, and the qualities of people that looked after them, ‘kind’, caring’, ‘fun’, ’people that make us laugh’ and people who will provide protection.

Children from all areas expressed that they would like to be taken more seriously and take more responsibility for their own lives. Children engaged in the Charnwood Arts summer arts programme on Shelthorpe estate expressed a strong desire for this to continue. It was summed up more than once in statements along the lines of “people need to know children live here.”

The team worked well together to both devise and deliver the programme of workshops. Some confusion arose at the start as there hadn’t been sufficient time to trial the activities we had devised before we went into the schools, and we weren’t always sure how the information we needed to get out of the children would fit in with the creative activities. Although our initial brief was to work with the age group 8-11, most schools were only willing to release years 3-4. This was due to the constraints of the curriculum and with SATS on the horizon in May, the Spring term is the time when teachers maximize their input. Only in one school (Cobden) did we have a year 5 group. The engagement of Year 6 children came through out of school groups and supplementary interviews. A number of children were also seven year olds due to split class arrangements.

To begin with, responses to questions tended to be monosyllabic with the adults doing most of the talking. However, as the team’s questioning skills improved, the quality of both recorded and written material improved. The tight deadline on the project meant that time that could have been spent on learning skills beforehand wasn’t available, so quite a lot of learning took place through the project! This also extended to devising and learning from the approaches as the project unfolded. Our workshop schedule was flexible, and although the majority of children seemed to enjoy the creative activities, in some of the longer question/response sessions, children became restless, so we changed and/or adapted accordingly. In fact, the teacher of the class we worked with at Cobden school commented that, due to the constraints of the national curriculum, the children have never worked together in groups larger than 3-4, so to be suddenly exposed to a totally different way of working was a big novelty to them. Many responded to this very well, but for some the excitement was too much and the focus wasn’t there.

The artists agreed that the decision to approach ‘Dreaming4Real’ from a creative perspective was a positive way of working with children, particularly with the younger age group. As they became involved in these activities, a sense of trust was engendered, and conversations naturally arose. When we addressed issues as a whole group, children would tend to repeat parrot fashion what they’d heard the child before saying, rather than thinking for themselves - this was especially true of the younger children (7-8 year olds).

The children were generally enthusiastic, interested and keen to offer help. The body outline activity with supporting word cards generated a lot of discussion and was generally very successful. The memory game tended to lead to long lists of things - this could have been developed given more time. The initial introduction with the map of Charnwood resulted in many interesting and varied images. Designing their ideal house/building resulted in some very imaginative and colourful buildings, and much fun was had - along with involved discussions - by moving the cutouts of these around maps of their ideal village. The role play, with Natalie (a drama student volunteer) in role as a town planner worked well.

In Wymeswold, she was so convincing that when she went out of the room at the end of the ‘meeting’ one little girl piped up ‘Where’s Natalie? I haven’t seen her all afternoon!’

In the two groups that we worked with outside of school, children were there by choice so numbers were much smaller and the dynamics very different. We also had a range of ages across middle to top primary, and in the Saturday club which met in Loughborough, one boy was 12. He took on the role of technician within the group, and since he was interested in technology this worked well. The group numbers remained stable in both groups. The Saturday club met over six weeks. The children didn’t all know each other at the start, and it was lovely to see how some of the shyer ones really started to blossom. Working within the ‘Dreaming4Real’ framework gave the activities a definite focus and we think this is what helped to gel the group together, so that they were sorry when it ended. Also we found that because we had more time, we, the adults, were able to take more of a back seat and in the more relaxed atmosphere, the children started to generate their own ideas.
Jagdeep Ryatt - one of the artist team noticed that many children followed the ideas of a ‘leader’ amongst the children when creating artwork. She suggests that a longer process that allows the children more time to connect with their own creativity, explore drawing and explore the tactile nature of mark making would have created even more individuality of response. The artists experimented with a range of mark making ‘tools’, drawing with pencils eliciting far more conceptual ideas than other materials.

1.	More time to study the findings! This is an important piece of social research.
2.	Follow-up workshops, possibly along the lines of the Saturday club. This group gelled really well, in spite of the disparity in ages and were sorry when it ended. The ‘Dreaming4Real’ theme gave the group cohesion and a sense of purpose.
3.	More input from the schools involved. We discovered some brilliant ways to interact with the children, in particular the role play and private interviews ‘one to one’. More specific information could be extracted this way.
4.	Potential to run the project through week long residencies.
5.	More closely targeted and professionally supported work for specific groups of children.

Computers
Well they are here to stay and children are playing on them more and more. People often worry about how isolating this must be for a child and we and the children think it would be a great idea if we could come up with solutions to help children interact with other children while using them and to engage in ‘off-line’ activities that enable children to see their own work on-line. A number of children through this and other projects have expressed the desire to be able to play computer games in a more social context. This could be achieved through digital projection facilities.
Another suggestion is for an adult monitored safe chat line for children in Charnwood. Dreaming4Real has already provided the basis for a web-site for children made by children. A website could also provide a schools linked news page for events and activities in Charnwood. The web already provides computer games where children can play with each other and link together, although again, an area specific game might have particular appeal.
A further suggestion was a ‘help-with-homework page’ - this could be supported by ‘live’ homework clubs. An idea from a German student on a placement with Charnwood Arts was for an on-line transport help page, where parents could give other children lifts to events or helping to organise minibuses.

Newsletters
A regular publication aimed at young people and parents to publicise what’s happening in Charnwood and surrounding areas. It seems that most children and parents don’t know what’s out there. Maybe it would be a good idea to produce a monthly or bi-monthly newsletter to go out to all schools and a copy which all children could take home.

Transport
This is something that could be sorted out amongst parents. It seemed there were some transport issues coming up when children in the same class were going to the same place. Something could be set up to bring the community together to solve such issues. Older children travel elsewhere through youth clubs, scouts or cubs but children who are not involved in these activities might also benefit from more communal approaches to visits and trips elsewhere.
Buses for children. An idea from Mexico encountered by one of the artists. The buses transport children from place to place. The buses had neon lights on them and music being playing – the kids loved them.

Annual Children’s Get Together
Annual event for the children of Charnwood, a free fun day to be held in a different town or village every year. Children would be engaged each year to help plan it.

Sports and teams
More Charnwood teams and sports facilities and events, rather than them being kept to separate areas within the borough. Perhaps an annual sports event or competition across the borough.

Supervised Outdoor Play
An exploration of the possibilities of providing suitably trained volunteers and skilled professional support to provide safe outdoor play for children.

Access to Animals and Pets
For some children this is already a reality, perhaps some form of ‘exchange’ between children in different areas would provide a low cost possibility or activities such as hosted farm visits.

Countryside Walks
Better use might be made of the country parks in this respect, particularly for children of South Asian backgrounds and those from low income families. Night wildlife adventures in the country parks would be good and could help bring together children of different cultures.

Outdoor Swimming and Inland Beach
This would require a lot of work and a major planning commitment - there are clearly considerations related to tourism development and major economic and public health and safety issues here.

Leisure Facilities
Access to leisure facilities is quite obviously unequal by geography, income, availability of information and parental disposition. Enhancing targeted provision is worth considering in detail. Improving publicity to some areas is also important.

Arts Activities
The children expressed a lot of interest in arts activities and the idea of having arts clubs. They seemed relatively unaware of the possibility of arts projects although a number have taken place in some of the schools involved. This is something that might be looked at in further detail.

Sports Activities
A wide range of sports activities might be created on an after school basis. This was a highly popular area for development.

Information About Further Education
This currently seems to be in the hands of parents - awareness at an early age of what secondary education is about seems to be important to many children.

Training for Adult Leaders
Who will take responsibility? Children had specific ideas.

Access to Male Role Models
This seemed important to a number of boys and is something that primary education needs to address

Dreaming4Real
Charnwood Arts would like to continue this initiative and can see many further possibilities with the project.
Cross Cultural Opportunities
There are enormous opportunities to encourage and develop cross cultural awareness and activities through the arts. This is an area requiring further initiative.

Child Friendly Environments
Children involved in the project have expressed many ideas along these lines. The basic tenet is that we live in environments that don’t normally reflect the fact that children live in them. Children’s ideas and presence should be recognised and made large through obvious signs that children also live here. The children had many great ideas for influencing the built environment ranging from adventurous ideas around building design to public arts and signage. It would not be hard for the local authorities to support a project that provided the opportunity to children to create or add to local road signage (it has already happened in Nottingham), or to support public art designed by children. Involving children directly in designing the built environment may have seemed unlikely ten years ago but things have moved on and who knows what local authorities may be able to provide in the way of support to its (‘disenfranchised’) junior citizens in the future. The consultation of children in planning and design is not unknown!

Childcare Developments
The County Council with advice from the Early Years Development and Childcare Partnership (EYDCP), is committed to meeting the needs of it’s local communities. Officers within the Early Years and Childcare Service will work closely with the EYDCP to ensure that the development of all types of childcare provision maintain the high profile which this document has engendered.
Initiatives such as the drama project developed at Shelthorpe School funded from the local Network Fund (formally the Children’s Fund) are examples of projects that have arisen as a direct result of this consultation process.