Main menu
Staff & students

Educational Studies blog

Primary page content

The BA Education Studies at Goldsmiths is the ticket to a golden future…read a student’s testimony!

Learning all about learning on the BA Education Studies, and secure a bright future!

When choosing a university degree to pursue, we oftentimes find ourselves asking, what do I want to do with my life? What kind of career do I want to pursue? Where do I see myself in three years? Asking these questions is perfectly normal. After all, for many of us, what we study is linked to what we do after graduation.

That is why a BA degree in Education is a good option. Our program nicely positions our students for pursuing a master’s and doctoral degree in the future. Our degree prepares students to go off and work in a variety of positions in the education sector such as education consulting, community education, further education, learning mentorship, education mental health practice, and, of course, teaching.

Our degree prepares educators with a robust understanding of educational systems, giving them answers to questions such as what is education? How is education experienced by young people? How do educational systems intersect with other axes of domination such as race, class, gender, and nation? Whose knowledge counts as knowledge?  How are identity and belonging produced through education? These frameworks prepare our students to take up education-related jobs and perform them well.

Our current, third-year student, Zubida, testifies to the strength of our BA degree in preparing students for work in the education sector:

“My experience with Education, Culture, and Society course is that it is a very rewarding and informing course. We take a range of modules which can lead to a number of roles and careers in the future.”

Going through the BA program at the Department of Educational Studies, Zubida attests that the modules she has taken will widening her career prospects.

But beyond preparing students for a life of work, our BA degree gives students critical and ethical frameworks for understanding education and educational institutions and therefore equips them with the tools necessary to do education differently and to do so with commitments to social justice broadly conceived.

Take again the words of Zubida. She says that the BA program gave her critical perspectives on race and gender and to contemporary political events, making her experience with our BA program rewarding and informing:

“The fact they teach about the struggle of race and gender is another plus—especially for me as a brown girl in a male-dominated society. They also talk about major world issues and conflicts.”

For Zubida, learning critical perspectives and bringing in current political issues is what allows her to enjoy our BA degree.

To sum up, our BA program delivers the demands that students are looking for in a degree: a degree that translates into employment success and a degree that offers opportunities for developing critical perspectives for understanding the social world.

“I genuinely can’t fault this course as I have enjoyed the three years learning from it,” said Zubida.

Check out our website at https://www.gold.ac.uk/educational-studies/ for more information about our BA degree.

Hope to see around!

Amina Shareef, January 2024.

The MA Children’s Literature joins the Centre for Literacy in Primary Education to celebrate their latest Reflecting Realities research

Last week, students from the MA Children’s Literature programme visited the Centre for Literacy in Primary Education (CLPE) for an insider’s look at their influential work promoting diversity and inclusivity in publishing.

The CLPE is a children’s literacy charity dedicated to raising the achievement of children’s reading and writing. Since 2017, they have published annual Reflecting Realities reports, which examine the quantity and quality of ethnic representation in the UK children’s book market. Our students heard first-hand from Farrah Serroukh, Interim Executive Director for Research and Development, about the key findings of the 2023 report, which was published last week. Together, we celebrated that 30% of the children’s titles published in 2022 featured racially minoritized characters – a big increase from 4% in 2017 – at the same time as thinking about how much further we have to go before the children’s publishing industry is truly inclusive.

For many students, the visit affirmed the importance of culturally relevant books for showing underrepresented readers that they have a place in the world and in the books they read. This message is fundamental to us on the MA Children’s Literature, where the first module “Children’s Literature, Culture and Diversity” examines how texts for young people can challenge and disrupt existing power systems and reimagine a more inclusive world.

One of the highlights of the visit was the chance to explore the 23,000 books and resources in the CLPE’s Literacy Library – a booklover’s dream. With fiction, non-fiction, picture books, graphic novels, and more, the Literacy Library gave students across all three pathways of the MA – Theoretical Approaches, Creative Writing, and Book Illustration – the opportunity to be immersed in the world of children’s books. Our visit made for a brilliant end to a great first term.

If you’d like to learn more about the MA Children’s Literature and the ways that we enable students to access cutting-edge insights into children’s literature and the publishing industry, visit our website. You can also contact our Head of Programme (Prof. Vicky Macleroy) or one of our Heads of Pathway (Theoretical Approaches – Dr Emily Corbett, Creative Writing – Dr Tori Bovalino, and Book Illustration – Bruce Ingman) for a more in-depth chat about how the MA Children’s Literature at Goldsmiths, University of London can support you.

Other MAs in the Department of Educational Studies which you might be interested in are:

MA Education: Culture Language and Identity, soon to be MA in Social Justice

The MA Education: Culture, Language and Identity has been developed into the MA Social Justice in Education (new from September 2024)

MA Children’s Literature

You can find full details about this very popular MA on the website here:

https://www.gold.ac.uk/pg/ma-childrens-literature/

MA Children’s Literature: Illustration Pathway

You can find full details about this very popular MA on the website here:

https://www.gold.ac.uk/pg/ma-childrens-literature-illustration/

MA Arts and Learning

You can find full details about this very popular MA on the website here:

https://www.gold.ac.uk/pg/ma-arts-learning/

MA Multilingualism, Linguistics and Education

You can find full details about this very popular MA on the website here:

https://www.gold.ac.uk/pg/ma-multilingualism-linguistics-education/

Undergraduate BA programmes

https://www.gold.ac.uk/ug/ba-education/

 

Then, Now, and Beyond Goldsmiths – a great student voice event! Listen to what students really have to say!

A wonderful Department of Educational Studies initiative taking place in December is a Student Voice event –Then, Now, and Beyond Goldsmiths – online on Tuesday 12th at 18.30- 20.00. 

 

This evening session will have short presentations from a number of current students in the department and alumni. They will be discussing how their experiences of differing courses and programmes has impacted their thinking and/or careers. We have speakers who did their BA, PGCE’s, MA’s and PhD’s at Goldsmiths. If you would like to come and hear from these wonderful and inspiring people then please follow this Teams link. You may be a current student, or a new applicant or someone who is just interested in hearing more about the Educational Studies department.  We would love to see you there.

 

MA Arts and Learning is unique, life-changing and innovative

 

On the MA Arts and Learning programme we are interested in exploring approaches to art practice and pedagogy by questioning theories of contemporary art and learning. Importantly we question what our practice is, what form it might take and how we can share innovative approaches with others. This term the students have been thinking about rules and disruption through a material engagement, making cats cradles, projecting ideas in spaces, questioning the identity of objects and themselves. We have thought about practice research methods, and how we can develop different ways to know, and engage complex ideas through materials and actions.

 

 

Next term we are excited that as part of our Critical Pedagogies in Contested Spaces module the students will be working with; The Mosaic Rooms, Bow Arts, The Young V&A, Autograph, and Bishopsgate. As part Of the Spaces of Practice module students will be also be working with CCA Goldsmiths, Gasworks and Iniva. These connections will enable us to unpick current pedagogical developments, and explore social and cultural issues within these wonderful venues and initiatives.

Our research and thinking on the MA Arts and Learning is closely connected with the Centre for Arts and Learning which is a research centre led by Dr Miranda Matthews in the Department of Educational Studies. This academic year the CAL theme is Arts Economies. If you interested in hearing more, you can access some of the fascinating previous presentations on Goldsmiths Learn.Gold webpage. You can also Follow us on twitter. (X) and instagram@maartsandlearning

Other MAs in the Department of Educational Studies which you might be interested in are:

MA Education: Culture Language and Identity, soon to be MA in Social Justice

The MA Education: Culture, Language and Identity has been developed into the MA Social Justice in Education (new from September 2024)

MA Children’s Literature

You can find full details about this very popular MA on the website here:

https://www.gold.ac.uk/pg/ma-childrens-literature/

MA Children’s Literature: Illustration Pathway

You can find full details about this very popular MA on the website here:

https://www.gold.ac.uk/pg/ma-childrens-literature-illustration/

MA Arts and Learning

You can find full details about this very popular MA on the website here:

https://www.gold.ac.uk/pg/ma-arts-learning/

MA Multilingualism, Linguistics and Education

You can find full details about this very popular MA on the website here:

https://www.gold.ac.uk/pg/ma-multilingualism-linguistics-education/

Undergraduate BA programmes

https://www.gold.ac.uk/ug/ba-education/

 

 

 

 

Four reasons why we have a Connected Curriculum at Goldsmiths


What is the Goldsmiths’ Connected Curriculum?

The Connected Curriculum is a series of interconnected modules which undergraduates across the university take during their first and second years.
During the first year, undergraduates from Departments which have opted into the Connected Curriculum take two modules:

• Identity, Agency and Environment 1: Everything is a Text, which focuses upon developing critical thinking skills by learning about how everything around us can be interpreted and analysed
• Identity, Agency and Environment 2: Researching our World and Lives, which focuses upon students learning research skills by learning about the environment and climate change

During the second year, students take an Elective module, where they can choose from a whole selection of different modules across the university, and also work in small groups on the Goldsmiths’ Project in order to tackle a social, intellectual or environmental problem.
The diagram below shows how it is structured:

The Connected Curriculum brings together students from across the university

There are a lot of reasons for instituting the Connected Curriculum, but a central one is to bring together students from across the whole university to engage in systematic, engaged conversations about their own learning and the learning more generally at the university. In the Connected Curriculum, there is a focus upon getting students to teach each other what they know and understand of the world, and to listen to other students’ opinions mindfully and in an emotionally literate fashion. This not only helps generate vital employability skills, but also widens minds to embrace learning beyond specific subject disciplines. So far, students have taken part in some amazing discussions in the first module, Identity, Agency and Environment 1: Everything is a Text. They’ve considered their own thoughts and feelings about being at university, talked about feminism, the importance of social action in the face of oppression, decolonising the curriculum, the role of Artificial Intelligence in the contemporary world.

To impart shared Goldsmiths’ values and concepts

The Connected Curriculum is a place where Goldsmiths can impart the values and concepts its learning community believes in, not least its commitment to interdisciplinary learning. Staff and students have the opportunity to examine their own subject discipline in depth and relate it to wider learning and research. Significantly, academics from across the university share their research and suggest ways in which it is relevant to everyone. In the first module, this has provided students with a dazzling array of lectures, where they’ve heard from experts on contemporary art critiquing Damien Hirst’s famous diamond studded skull, people’s histories about the New Cross Fire, analysis of the film Barbie and Marxist analysis of cultural hegemony and much else. After listening to these lectures, students have unpacked these lectures, and related the content to their own concerns and disciplines, developing their critical thinking skills in the process. The point here is that they’ve been challenged to think differently about the world and to hone their own informed, analytical opinions about it. This approach creates new ways of thinking and innovative ideas, much of which we’ve seen in evidence in the seminars.

To encourage innovation in assessment

An innovative form of assessment has been developed for the Connected Curriculum whereby students can submit different forms of assessment for the module. They can submit:

• 1,000 word academic research project
• Or: 3-5 minutes of produced audio
• Or: edited song/music of 3 mins
• Or: a concept map consisting of images and words (approx. 500 words)
• Or: a poster aimed at a specific audience, consisting of images, diagrams and 250 words
• Or: a blog post of 750 words which could include original images, video clips, diagrams
• Or: 5-minute video (appropriately edited)
• Or: designed newsletter; leaflet/information sheet of 750 words + appropriate pictures/diagrams.
• Or: negotiated practical project with annotation of 500 words

The point here is that in the modern world, sometimes it is more important to be able to concisely and critically present information in multimodal forms (film, audio, photos/pictures etc) than it is to write an academic essay. Students have the choice, and can choose the assessment form that works best for them, working closely with their wonderful seminar tutors who have been trained to teach this assessment approach. Recently, the university has become an Adobe Campus, and is working closely with Adobe, the IT department and the library to deliver additional training sessions for using Adobe for the Connected Curriculum assessments. The college has recently appointed an Adobe Digital Skills Evangelist who will also assist considerably with this training.

To promote vital shared skills and content

The Connected Curriculum has been very carefully planned so that students achieve certain learning outcomes. These are outcomes which speak directly to the students.
These are the learning outcomes for Identity, Agency and Environment 1: ‘Everything is a Text’
When you complete the module, you should be able to:
1 Engage critically with different theories of texts and account for the role of text in social worlds
2 Apply textual analysis to contemporary cultural debates
3 Collate evidence to support your ideas and arguments about a topic of your choice
4 Organize and structure an engaging presentation of your ideas in your own text
5 Reflect upon how your work in the module relates to your own aspirations and learning

For Identity, Agency and Environment 2: ‘Researching our World and Lives’ they are:

When you complete the module, you should be able to:
1 Investigate and critically evaluate effective sources of evidence to inform your research.
2 Demonstrate that you can reference your research appropriately, accurately & academically.
3 Draw informed academic findings from your research.
4 Organise and structure an engaging, academic presentation of your research.
5 Apply critical reflexive methods for constructive self-evaluation, and how you will plan-approach your learning progression.

These learning outcomes are ones which the university has agreed are core skills and approaches that students should learn in their first year of the university. The benefit of learning these skills in an inter-disciplinary module is that students develop their ability to understand their subjects in wider contexts but also communicate their learning to an eclectic community.

The BA Education Programme at Goldsmiths is an amazing journey!

For many young people, going to university for the first time is a daunting experience. For some, it may be the first time away from home. For others, it may be the first time leaving the well-known neighbourhoods, routines, and cityscapes of childhood. For many, going to university is a first step into the “real world,” the world of being independent, thinking about and planning a career, and living on your own.

Whatever the situation, it is all the more necessary that young people have a supportive university environment in which they can learn and learn what excites them, speaks to their passions, and learn in ways that acknowledge their ways of knowing and being, brings their personal biographies, communities histories, and personal aspirations into the learning experience. It is also equally important that young people have an environment where they are valued as a individuals, their emotional needs are paid attention to and taken care of and they can seek pastoral care if necessary.

The BA program at the Department of Educational Studies provides just that kind of environment. The Goldsmiths BA program encourages students to re-think what they know about education and pay attention to its relationship to culture, identity, social justice, race and racism, citizenship, democracy, and much more. The program is led by well-accomplished scholars in their respective fields who understand how to make learning thought-provoking, culturally relevant, and transformative. At the same time, the small size of the program provides a tight-knit community that is nurturing, caring, concerned for wellbeing. In the BA program, tutors know students by their names and show genuine concern and care. The friendships made last a lifetime.

Nora Khan, a third year student, shares her reflections of the BA program:

“The BA program was an amazing journey! The classes were intellectually stimulating and well-structured. The professors were knowledgeable, approachable, and friendly, which created an environment conducive to learning. Interacting with peers was fun and enriching. The academic atmosphere within the department was one of diligence and camaraderie, creating a close-knit family. Overall, the BA program exceeded my expectations and offered a rewarding educational experience.”

For Nora, the BA program was not just a course, but a journey of traveling through ideas, concepts, and news ways of thinking and being. For Nora, the BA program was marked by the tutors who created a learning environment that was fun yet enriching.

Nora is not the only student to share such views about the BA program in the Department of Educational Studies. There are many others.

So, if you are thinking of a career in education, know that the BA program in the Department of Educational Studies will offer you a stimulating academic experience as well as a validating and comfortable social environment.

Hope to see you here!

By Amina Shareef, Lecturer in Education at Goldsmiths.

Undergraduate BA programmes

Log on here to find out more:

https://www.gold.ac.uk/ug/ba-education/

MAs in the Department of Educational Studies which you might be interested in if you already have a degree are:

MA Education: Culture Language and Identity, soon to be MA in Social Justice

The MA Education: Culture, Language and Identity has been developed into the MA Social Justice in Education (new from September 2024)

We build very much upon the strong and popular basis that is the MA Education: Culture, Language and Identity drawing upon the expertise of talented and knowledgeable academics.

This programme is designed for you if you are interested in how questions around social justice impact upon education as well as lived aspects of our lives. In part, this new MA  aims to address issues faced by those in informal learning contexts as well as formal educators at all levels, international settings and related fields.

You can find full details about this very popular MA on the website here:

https://www.gold.ac.uk/pg/ma-education-culture-language-identity/

MA Children’s Literature

You can find full details about this very popular MA on the website here:

https://www.gold.ac.uk/pg/ma-childrens-literature/

MA Children’s Literature: Illustration Pathway

You can find full details about this very popular MA on the website here:

https://www.gold.ac.uk/pg/ma-childrens-literature-illustration/

MA Arts and Learning

You can find full details about this very popular MA on the website here:

https://www.gold.ac.uk/pg/ma-arts-learning/

MA Creative Writing and Education

If you are writer who is interested in education, or a teacher who writes, this course may be for you!

Log on here: https://www.gold.ac.uk/pg/ma-creative-writing-education/

MA Multilingualism, Linguistics and Education

You can find full details about this very popular MA on the website here:

https://www.gold.ac.uk/pg/ma-multilingualism-linguistics-education/

 

 

Beat the Christmas blues by freeing your creative voice! Come to our amazing conference — it’s free!

For many people, Christmas can be a very problematic time. On the MA in Creative Writing and Education which I run at Goldsmiths, we investigate the ways in which creative writing and creativity more generally can improve your wellbeing. Much research and practice shows that creative writing can have healing properties. The founding father of psychoanalysis Sigmund Freud argued that creative writers are daydreamers who find expression of their innermost desires in their writing. Most recently, James Pennebaker and his fellow researchers have found that expressive writing can help people suffering from a wide range of medical conditions, such as HIV.

On the MA in Creative Writing and Education we learn about these different types of research into creative writing and put quite a few of them into action, with students carrying out their own research. One of the key strategies that many of our students find liberating and healing is freewriting. On the course, they learn how and why this form of writing can be so successful. One of the recent gurus of freewriting, Peter Elbow explains what it is here and its benefits:

‘The most effective way I know to improve your writing is to do freewriting exercises regularly. At least three times a week. They are sometimes called ‘automatic writing’, ‘babbling’, or ‘jabbering’ exercises. The idea is to write for 10 minutes (later on, perhaps fifteen-twenty). Don’t stop for anything. Go quickly without rushing. Never stop to look back, to cross something out, to wonder how to spell something, to wonder what word or thought to use, or to think about what you’re doing. If you can’t think of a word or a spelling, just a squiggle or else write ‘I can’t think of it’. Just put something down. The easiest thing to do is put down whatever is in your mind.’ (Peter Elbow, Writing without Teachers, OUP, 1998, p. 3)

On the MA many of our students significantly improve their creative writing and their teaching of creative writing by instituting a regular routine of freewriting with themselves and their students.

In an upcoming conference on Freeing Creative Voice at Goldsmiths, many of the workshop leaders and lecturers will be showing how they have used freewriting and other strategies to find their voice as writers, as teachers, as people. The award winning writer Rachel Seiffert will l will lead an interactive workshop and offer suggestions on how writers from all backgrounds can encourage young students to free their creative minds and voices. Alumni and current students from the course will be sharing their wonderful research and creative outputs during interactive workshops on reciprocal teaching and journalling, using creative writing with language learners, writing privately and totally freely, psycho-analysis and poetry writing, using creative writing to engage in political debates, exploring abuse through creative writing, and connecting with one’s cultural heritage through creative writing. The conference will be topped off by the wonderful Victoria Bolavino who will explore how and why she wrote her novel Not Good for Maidens – A Goblin Market Re-telling (2022), and illustrate how she has freed her own creative writing voice

If you would like to be cheered up and you’re interested in writing, and/or teaching creative writing, do consider coming to the conference, it’s free. Tickets can be found here.

You can learn more about the MA in Creative Writing and Education here. 

Other MAs in the Department of Educational Studies which you might be interested in are:

MA Education: Culture Language and Identity, soon to be MA in Social Justice

The MA Education: Culture, Language and Identity has been developed into the MA Social Justice in Education (new from September 2024)

We build very much upon the strong and popular basis that is the MA Education: Culture, Language and Identity drawing upon the expertise of talented and knowledgeable academics.

This programme is designed for you if you are interested in how questions around social justice impact upon education as well as lived aspects of our lives. In part, this new MA  aims to address issues faced by those in informal learning contexts as well as formal educators at all levels, international settings and related fields.

You can find full details about this very popular MA on the website here:

https://www.gold.ac.uk/pg/ma-education-culture-language-identity/

MA Children’s Literature

You can find full details about this very popular MA on the website here:

https://www.gold.ac.uk/pg/ma-childrens-literature/

MA Children’s Literature: Illustration Pathway

You can find full details about this very popular MA on the website here:

https://www.gold.ac.uk/pg/ma-childrens-literature-illustration/

MA Arts and Learning

You can find full details about this very popular MA on the website here:

https://www.gold.ac.uk/pg/ma-arts-learning/

MA Multilingualism, Linguistics and Education

You can find full details about this very popular MA on the website here:

https://www.gold.ac.uk/pg/ma-multilingualism-linguistics-education/

Undergraduate BA programmes

https://www.gold.ac.uk/ug/ba-education/

Why should the New Cross Fire be explored in Goldsmiths’ Connected Curriculum?

An exhibition Dr John Price helped run earlier this year.

It is 9am in the Ian Gulland Lecture in Goldsmiths on dark Wednesday morning. Hundreds of students are listening to the historian John Price talk about his research into the New Cross Fire. I’m at the back, gauging the atmosphere of the cohort.

It is a spine-tingling moment. An important moment. Because despite the fact that it’s quite early in the morning and we are a little chilled from the inclement weather, we are all utterly engrossed. Dr Price, or John as he prefers to be called by everyone at Goldsmiths, is explaining how and why the New Cross Fire was – and continues to be — a tragedy every student at Goldsmiths should know about. Indeed, a tragedy the whole nation should learn about. It happened just a few minutes walk from the Ian Gulland, forty-two years ago. As John explains, all of the people who died in the fire were younger than the students sitting before him, so young. It was supposed to be a joyous occasion: it was a joint party celebration for Yvonne Ruddock and Angela Jackson and was held at 439 New Cross Road on Sunday 18, 1981. A fire started – the cause of which has never been properly discovered – leading to unspeakable horror and tragedy: 13 young people died. The trauma of the incident still ricochets amongst the community.

There is a hush in the lecture theatre. John has already said that if anyone finds the material too upsetting, then they are free to leave the lecture theatre. His approach is profoundly emotionally literate. It connects with what I have already lectured about in previous weeks: the role that emotion plays in learning. We all need to be emotionally receptive to learning. It can help if a learner is aware or mindful of how they are feeling about their learning because there are emotional states where learning best happens, ‘flow’ states, where you are calm but alert.

Everyone seemed to be in this flow state in John’s lecture for a number of reasons. They were gripped by the subject matter and John’s profound knowledge of it. They understood the importance of understanding the tragedy and the lessons that can be learned from it. While much has been said about the causes of the New Cross Fire, John’s approach was to look at the people involved and affected by it, examining in particular the institutional structures which led to multiple miscarriages of justice. He highlighted the police’s automatic assumptions which led to them missing vital evidence and outrageously arresting the traumatised survivors, questioning them for hours and extracting statements under duress. He talked about the first inquest into the fire in 1981, where the coroner, going against prescribed practice, took absolutely no notes. Not one. He drew chilling parallels between the Grenfall tragedy and the New Cross Fire. Has anything changed? The institutional racism still seems to be there as recent reports such as the Casey report show.

This lecture was part of the first module (Identity, Environment and Agency 1: Everything is a Text) of the Connected Curriculum, which commenced this year (September 2023) at Goldsmiths. The aim of the Connected Curriculum is to bring first year undergraduates across the university (from many different subjects) to learn skills and content which Goldsmiths, as an institution, values. With this first module, the focus is upon helping students become critical thinkers and see the whole of life as a series of texts that can be unpacked through deep thinking and searching debate. Each week a lecturer from the university explores a text of their choice, which is always Goldsmiths related. For the first week, Dr Caroline Kennedy the convenor of this module, and academic co-director of the Connected Curriculum along with myself, gave a thrilling lecture on Goldsmiths’ alumni Damien Hirst’s diamond skull For the Love of God. How brilliant is that? A skull can be a text! Caroline’s lecture was revelatory, questioning, and always engaging.

For the next two weeks, I lectured upon alumni Bernadine Evaristo’s Girl, Woman, Other, looking at the ways in which she explores intersectionality in her Booker-Prize winning novel, and Les Back’s Letter to a New Student, where he gives advice to a new student starting at university. The aim of these lectures was to outline the sorts of habits of learning which can really aid any undergraduate’s study: mindful listening, emotional literacy, freewriting, concept mapping, and reciprocal teaching. Don’t worry if you don’t know what these terms mean, I intend to blog about them in the future!

This was followed by Sarah Ewing’s exploration of decolonising the curriculum, which showed that much of what we think of as unbiased knowledge is actually shaped by our violent, biased colonial past. Her lecture was followed by John’s on the New Cross Fire. A common theme emerged across all the lectures: the need for all of us to become critical thinking, to question so-called common sense and prejudices.

After each lecture, the students discuss the issues in seminars led by our fantastic tutor team, honing their critical thinking skills. All the tutors reported having amazing discussions about John’s lecture: it was an intense and emotional experience to listen together about this tragedy, and then have a chance to unpick what actually happened and dialogue about the vital issues. This is what the Connected Curriculum is all about; all of us at the university learning together, figuring new ways of thinking about old problems, and considering innovative lines of inquiry which could spark and mobilise change for the better.

The Freeing Creative Voice Conference is coming! Sign up now! Details here

Organisers: Dr Francis Gilbert, Carrie Sweeney (MA in Creative Writing and Education), Stephanie Januchowski-Hartley (MA in Creative Writing and Education)

When? 16th December 2023

Where?

The Margaret McMillan Building MMB 220, and MMB 212, 214, 224, 225, 226

212, 214, 220, 224, 225, 226

Why?

This creative writing conference is all about freeing the voice to express itself in imaginative, surprising ways.

Who?

This conference is aimed at anyone interested in creative writing and teaching creative writing. It will focus particularly on the ways in which writers can ‘free their creative voice’, and how teachers can help their students ‘free creative voice’. The conference will be full of interactive lectures and workshops: it will be very ‘hands on’ and not overly academic.

We have two wonderful keynote speakers, Rachel Seiffert, prize-winning novelist and creative writing educator with First Story, and Victoria Bovalino, creative writing tutor at Goldsmiths and author of an exciting new Young Adult novel based upon Christina Rossetti’s “Goblin Market.” Alumni from the MA in Creative Writing and Education will also be running a number of other workshops, all looking at ways in which writers, teachers and writer-teachers can ‘free creative voice’.

9.30am-10am Introductions (MMB 220)

The conference convenors (Dr Francis Gilbert, Carrie Sweeney, Stephanie Januchowski-Hartley) will introduce the day, explaining the rationale of the conference.

10am-11am Keynote speaker: Rachel Seiffert

Rachel will lead an interactive workshop and offer suggestions on how writers from all backgrounds can encourage young students to free their creative minds and voices.

Session 1: 11.15am-12pm

Workshop 1: Sam Butler: reciprocal teaching and journalling

Sam will explore how reciprocal teaching and reflective journalling can help people with the transitions in their lives.

Workshop 2: Aimee Skelton

Aimee will explore how English as Second Language Learners who have been involved with migration

Session 2: 12.15pm-1pm

Workshop 1: Autumn Sharkey: private writing and freedom

Autumn will be helping you to explore how keeping a writer’s journal can help you tap into your everyday life for creative inspiration. In the workshop we will be looking at how to set up a journal, different ways to record the world around you, and how to pull inspiration from what you record.

Workshop 2: Georgia Brown

Georgia will explore how poetry can aid the psycho-analytic process, by sharing her own poems and others.

Lunch: 1pm-1.45pm

Session 3: 1.45pm-2.30pm

Workshop 1: Siamak Khezrian

Siamak will show how creative writing can help people engage in important political debates, through the writing of scripts and dialogues representing people of different views.

Session 4: 2.5pm-3.30pm

Workshop 1: Nick Bailey

Nick will share a short story which should provoke an interesting discussion and creative responses which explore issues connected with consent, trauma and identity.

Workshop 2: Desiri Okobia

Desiri will show how creative writing can be used to explore connections with cultural heritage and identity.

3.45pm-4.45pm: Victoria Bovalino keynote

Victoria will explore how and why she wrote her novel Not Good for Maidens – A Goblin Market Re-telling (2022), and illustrate how she has freed her own creative writing voice.

4.45pm-5pm Plenary and anthology launch

Discussion of all the workshops and what people learnt, and what they would like to learn more about.

Spreading good practice: developing the Parklife Toolkit

It is early July in Deptford Green schools and students from Goldsmiths, funded by the British Academy’s SHAPE initiative, are working with teachers and pupils at the school to co-create a ‘Parklife Toolkit’. They are looking at designs for possible websites for the Parklife Toolkit: considering fonts, colour schemes, lay outs. What will make the website attractive for other schools and community groups?

First, the pupils were asked by our website designer, a Media student at Goldsmiths, Yanning Tan, to:

Rank these 4 fonts (see above link) according to which would be best for the Parklife website? Don’t look too closely at the font in particular, instead focus on the overall vibe and impression of it! Do we want something more professional, or something more playful…or somewhere in between?

Then second, they were asked to consider:

Colours and possible logos – Which appeal most to them? Do the colours look visually appealing and do they fit the image of Parklife? If not what colours might be better? 

Website layouts and designs. Which one do they prefer and why? Any specific elements that they like about the design?

After some long discussions, the layout, fonts and colour schemes were agreed. You’ll have to wait until the website is launched to see the final result though, there was much debate and controversy amongst the pupils.

A series of other key ideas and concepts were considered, which are represented on these pieces of sugar paper. A key aspect of the Parklife project was doing creative research. The pupils and Goldsmiths students co-created this rather marvellous but simple series of steps.

The pupils considered the journey they went on during the Parklife Project so that they could put this into their Toolkit. This piece of sugar paper contains a rough series of points:

The Goldsmiths’ students helped the pupils discussed each of these important events and experiences connected with the Parklife Project:

Autumn Sharkey, a Goldsmiths student on the MA in Creative Writing and Education, summed up the timeline in this way:

1 Creative research

We split into three groups – the art group, the creative writing group and the litter picking group. We made a video of a hedgehog going through the woods and the forest using a 360 camera, we made a cottage poem and we painted artwork bringing to life what it could look like.

2 Advocacy day

Delegates from our local council joined together to listen to our manifesto. This included changes that needed to take place to impact safety, litter and engagement of the youth in our local park. The session started with the Parklife team presenting our creative research, which was followed by a Q&A session and a pledge writing activity, which were then followed up with. This helped us connect with the local community and bring change.

3 Following up on pledges from the council

The pledges were created from our short term and long term goals which were safety, litter and engaging young people. We collaborated, worked together and communicated by emailing the pledges back out to those who had attend the advocacy day to remind them about what they said they would do.

4 Meeting the mayor of Lewisham

Meeting the mayor of Lewisham was an important step that we have taken in order to achieve some changes in the park. During the meeting we used a shortened script from advocacy day in order to further advocate for our worries. We used the video to persuade and got some neutral response. They explained that the council doesn’t have enough resources to implement all of these changes, however we got to the point of agreement about a possible water fountain.

5 Building the water fountain

We prepared for the meeting with snacks and all of our creative work, and then the Lewisham Council came to school – we introduced ourselves and the project, explained how we want to change the park using our creative work. We asked them questions, and they took note, they said ‘no’ to a few, and discussed other points. We asked for the fountain and they built it.

6 Lewisham People’s Day

We went to Lewisham People’s Day to celebrate the work that we had created and spread awareness about park life. THis helped our confidence to stand up for our park and show others the significance of what we had done.

7 Meeting the NHS

We went to visit the local NHS workers to the park and discussed the flower garden that had been mentioned before in our meetings with Sarah Lang. The flower garden is being predicted to create 

8 Interviewing the police about park 

We were asking a lot of questions like how often does crime happen in the park, also we discussed the perception versus the reality of the park. We were discussing the statistics on how often crime happens and also the security of the park.

9 Major school survey about safety

We conducted a major school survey to determine the areas that cause the most fear. We discovered that the underpass caused the most feelings of lack of safety. We used this data to create our quiz.

10 Create an interactive quiz

The interactive quiz was first supposed to be made to raise awareness about our local green space. It was made as a Netflix film in order to engage as many as possible and make them realise the difference between perception and reality. However, later on we used it in our own climate conference in order to explain to the participants that were attending that although this relates to every park, it is better to check the reality rather than base our lives around possibilities.

11 Climate conference

We started practicing how to project our voices, we used what we’d already been doing to encourage other schools, and made a stand and a powerpoint to show how we’d changed the park – and then we added a quiz to stop them getting bored.

12 World Book Night

We collected together our best poems about Parklife, and then practised performing them to each other in a safe and kind way. We got in contact with the people who ran the local library and asked to present our poems to them and the local community. We were quite nervous when we presented the poems, but everyone was very appreciative. The local people asked us lots of questions about the project, and we were able to answer them very fully. It was a good experience to feel their interest and curiosity. They invited us back to do more events. It was a great connection to make. 

As you can see by the Powerpoint presentation painstakingly and lovingly created by our Creative Writing and Education student, Gabriella Sepsik, there were plenty of proud and memorable moments:

The project led to some wonderful creative work being produced:

A key feature of the project was to have clear goals and indicators of success. This poster illustrates this:

Christine Khisa supervised the last part of the creation of the Toolkit and really motivated the pupils to produce some great advice on how to run a Parklife project. These results will be shown in the upcoming Toolkit!

Meanwhile, Laura Dempsey at Volunteers for Future, and Rebecca Deegan, at I have a voice, two social enterprises that work with schools across the country, are devising their own Toolkit, which is aimed at primary school teachers and volunteer facilitators. It will also incorporate student research, ideation and design but aimed at a younger age group. We can’t wait to see what Toolkit they come up with as well!

The aim is that by the end of July, we will have two Toolkits in place: a toolkit aimed at teenagers, secondary schools and community groups and a toolkit aimed at primary school teachers. Both will go on the website that Yanning will create. In September, with the Toolkits published, we will start on the next phase of the Parklife project which will be test and trial the Toolkits with a number of schools: 3 secondary schools and/or local organisations, and 3 primary schools and/or groups which work with primary aged children. The final deadlines of the trialling and testing year have yet to be decided, but the funding has been secured so it’s definitely going to happen. We can’t wait to see how the Parklife Toolkits might work with other schools and organisations!