Project Title:’Bridging the Gap’
Funding: Creative Partnerships and GAP
School:Gable Hall School, Corringham, Essex
Suklaa Roles: Producer, Documentation- video/ photography

Description:
‘Bridging the Gap’ focused on young people’s relationships with what they wear both in and out of school. 50 students at Gable Hall School took part in this social experiment project- where they first discussed their personal style outside of school and to what extent their clothes expressed their personalities.

Weekend Uniforms
All the participating students were given a ‘weekend uniform’ consisting of straight blue jeans and plain white T-shirts- on a saturday they all wore them and were asked to remove any makeup/ jewelry etc we went to Lakeside Shopping Centre (a place they’d normally hang out during weekends) – they recorded info relating to how they felt, how other people reacted to them- as well as taking images and notes of relating to the fashion around them.

Personal Style
During the second phase of the project- three fashion designers and printmakers came in to work with the students- to help them alter their jeans and T-shirts in anyway the wanted to best fit what they felt was their personal style. The following saturday the students wore the new outfits and went back to the shopping centre to again record the results.

Market Place
In the final stage students worked in groups to create mini-business and designed and made one new outfit from the jeans and white T-shirt base- their brief was to create an outfit that they felt would best appeal to their immediate market (the whole school community 1200 students). The groups put together a pitch for their designs and organised a catwalk show and presentation in which their audience voted and the group with the most votes won.

Few quotes from partisipating teachers and students:
‘This was a fantastic project- it really helped the students to understand fashion design, branding and marketing- they created some brilliant work‘. (Teacher Gable Hall School)
‘I loved meeting the designers- their work was great! I want to be in fashion when I’m older and now I think I can do it!‘ (Gable Hall Student)
‘It was really hard to wear the blank t-shirt and jeans on our first trip to Lakeside- I felt boring and bland- I want to wear clothing that represents who I am‘ (Gable Hall Student).

Project Title:‘New Views’
Funding: National Theatre
Suklaa Roles: Workshop Leader, Photographer

This project involved creating and running workshops for young people from schools all over London on theme of Importance of the Image- this was part of the New Views Programme- run by National Theatre Education Department. We also worked with the students to create images for their publicity and we took portraits of each participant which were projected during their final performances in the National Theatre.

Project Title: ‘Reaching Out’
Funding: Creative Partnerships
The British Council
Stifford Clays Junior School
Schools: Stifford Clays Junior School, Grays, Essex
Pukllasunchis School, Cusco, Peru
Suklaa Roles: Creative Agent, Video production, website design/production

Description:
Reaching Out is about widening horizons and celebrating the diversity and similarities we share with students and teachers all over the world. From our lead CP school- Stifford Clays in Essex we created links with schools in Australia, Japan and Peru. We put together a joint project called ‘The Global Games Exchange’ where young people in each country shared their favourite games with all the participants. To develop this relationship we were lucky enough to secure British Council Funding to send 2 teachers and CP practitioners to Cusco to meet and work directly with our Peruvian partners. Peruvian staff are due to visit SCJ later this year. The learning from our joint work has exceeded all expectations- staff and creative practitioners were energised and inspired by this brilliant opportunity which has widened their perspectives in relation to teaching and learning.