Throughout half term, our collaborative Digital Silver Arts Award programme with Future u and Blackpool and the Fylde college has begun…

The Creative Learning Department was excited to welcome local Blackpool students to The Grand Theatre last week to begin the journey of their Digital Silver Arts Award. This exciting opportunity is a collaborative project, working along side Future U and Blackpool and the Fylde College.

The London Trinity Silver Arts Award is a Level 2 accredited qualification, and is open to young people up to 25 years of age. It carries the equivalent UCAS points of a GCSE at A-C level.

To achieve a Silver Arts Award, young people collect evidence in an individual arts portfolio of their experiences of Arts practice and pathways, such as identifying and planning an arts challenge, implementing and reviewing their challenge, reviewing arts events and undertaking arts research.

The students will also plan a Take Over show/presentation of their chosen art form at the theatre on July 8th. Save the Date! But before the takeover, they will take part in Arts leadership workshops, identifying a leadership role and planning the project’s aims, planning the practical issues, being an effective arts leader and working effectively with others.

In the three-day Digital Silver Arts Award intensives, the Blackpool students had an access all areas tour of the theatre and met the Front of House manager and Creative Leaning manager to find out the inner workings and employment opportunities of the Grand and within theatre.

We also had an action-packed day in Manchester starting at Salford University at Media City. On this tour, the students saw recording and TV studios, high spec equipment used through the animation and radio suites and the close industry links students have there to the BBC and ITV on their doorsteps.

Following this we headed over to the BBC studios and stepped inside the exciting world of broadcasting. Where an informative, entertaining guide welcomed us, pulling back the curtain to show what happens behind the scenes of your BBC. The young people were particularly excited exploring the studio where ‘The Voice’ is filmed, and heading over to the BBC Breakfast red sofa to have some hands-on experience presenting the morning news and weather.

The day finished with an afternoon at The Lowry. Here the gallery staff gave a guided tour of their exhibition. This exhibition of nine international artists allowed us to experience a range of emotional and physical reactions to artwork that explore the links between humans, machines and technology – both now and in the future. The students highly recommend this exhibit with it’s comedic value, juxtaposed with darkness in places.

A theatre technician also gave a tour of their two main auditoriums, one of which was being fitted out for a show, so we were lucky enough to catch the lighting being programmed. He also chatted openly to the students about ways into the industry and the highs and lows of the profession, which ended our busy, creative day of art and technology.

At The Grand Theatre we run a range of Arts Awards in partnership with Curious Minds .Our Grand Young Company  students are working through their Bronze Arts Award’s based in physical theatre workshops directed by Calen Griffin, which will lead to a sharing performance of Jekyll and Hyde before the professional performance on the main stage , and we wish all the best to our Grand Young Technicians whom have submitted their Bronze applications.

Don’t worry if you missed these opportunities, Creative Learning run many events throughout the year for ages 3 to 103! Just keep visiting our blog to hear about the next event or sign up to the Grand Theatre’s Twitter or Facebook page. Why not follow us on Instagram too!