In 2012, Corelli College in collaboration with Emergency Exit Arts delivered the highly successful Signs of Change project in 6 primary schools. The project encouraged young people to understand that they have a positive contribution to make on their communities and the environment and they can lead the way in making change happen.
Primary staff expressed a need for a 'cross-school' project, working with Year 7+8 & enabling participants to make REAL decisions + REAL changes.
Learning from the success of this project in 2013, we offered 8 primary schools the chance to participate in a Change Symposium: Celebrating young decision makers' as an extension of Signs of Change. This project engaged pupils from year 5 from each school in implementing positive changes in their learning environments. Pupils received cross art form workshops co-designed by young leaders from Corelli College and led by EEA Artists also known as Change Scientists!
The workshops placed the pupils in decision-making positions, inspiring them to work together to imagine the power of their decisions and the impact of their actions on their schools. They were then challenged to actualise one of these changes as part of the project's change challenge. They had to document how to raise awareness and involve the wider school community as well as the group's ability to work together as a team. The schools identified various problems in their school, examples include: the danger of cars double parking at Sherington Primary School; smelly toilets at Charlton Manor; a code of conduct for the playground at Brooklands and an indoor play room for playtime at Foxfield.