MADE is Manchester’s local cultural education partnership. We’re on a mission to bring arts and culture to every young person in the city. Read on to find out what we’ve been up to.
A tough but productive first year
Billy Colours and the National Football Museum help to ‘Unlock Your Imagination’.
Launched in March 2020, a week before the first national lockdown, the 15 schools and 23 cultural organisations who make up our core partnership have made significant progress towards our core aims: to bring arts and culture to every young person in Manchester, and to help teachers to enrich their lessons with a creative curriculum. On top of our Task Group Activity, MADE brokered activity over the summer holidays via the Holiday Activity Fund. We’re really happy that we delivered 26 different sessions across schools and community groups, and that as a result, 631 unique participants took part in our activities.
A new look
You might have noticed our new brand? Formerly the Manchester Cultural Education Partnership, over the summer we became MADE. The look is cleaner, much more coherent, and it fits with our primary aim: we want young people to get things MADE. You can read in more detail about our first year of activity here. With over 50 participation projects launched, hundreds of local young people engaged, a name change and a full re-brand, it’s been a big year. And we want to keep going!
Next steps
Pupils from Loreto College get to work at the Manchester Art Gallery.
Over the summer, we held a virtual Away Day to review our first year of activity, and to set some strategic priorities for the coming year. These 9 points will shape our work in the year ahead: 1. Developing future leadership 2. Widening representation across all levels of MADE 3. Building a Manchester curriculum 4. Using culture and creativity to support wellbeing 5. Increasing reach and access 6. Building sustainability for our work 7. Using the power of MADE to advocate for change 8. Further development of communications 9. Establish a themed event based on Manchester’s Year of the Child for 2022 Our Steering Group and Working Group are currently meeting to plot the direction of travel for all the Task Groups in the coming year… Watch this space!
Free teaching resources
In our first year of activity, all Task Groups worked towards developing digital resources that can be used by other teachers in the classroom to inspire their pupils with creativity. From exploring Maths and shape through art, to drawing activities using clouds or a collage art activity inspired by the words of activist Sarah Parker Remond, visit our Resource hub on the website to find the right resource for your students. Access MADE’s Digital Resources.
MADE comes to the Whitworth
MADE will be coming to the Whitworth art gallery from Saturday 23 October with a display of work developed by young people involved with two of our Task Groups: Creative Curriculum and Youth Voice. Drop by to see poems, photographs, videos and artwork in the School of Creativity space on the mezzanine. The display will also feature a Manifesto written by MADE’s Creative Influencers and illustrated by local artist Molly O’Donoghue. The 7-point call-to-action encourages other young people to overcome their reservations and visit Manchester’s cultural venues. The Manifesto has also been turned into a web-resource so that teachers can use it in the build-up to weekends/half terms, and encourage their pupils to get out into the city and see some culture. You can see the resource here. A collection of Black Lives Matter wallpapers, created by pupils at the Manchester College as part of our Creative Curriculum activity strand, are also set to tour Manchester schools in the Autumn.
Diversifying the Curriculum
MADE has set up a new task group to focus on diversifying the curriculum, developing resources and arts activity which will enable pupils in Manchester to unpick diversity and to celebrate the varied communities that call the city ‘home’. Partners from the National Football Museum, Z-arts, the Manchester Histories Festival, Our Shared Cultural Heritage (based at Manchester Museum), Brighter Sound and the University of Manchester will start working with schools over the next few months. If you’re interested in joining us, get in touch. This task group held a drop-in workshop at the fantastic Ripples of Hope Festival at HOME, asking members of the public how we can support schools to diversify the curriculum. We came away with lots of brilliant ideas, and the conversations we had will help shape the team’s work to have the biggest possible impact on hundreds of local pupils. Join us Our Creative Influencers at work on a flag for their BEYOUnique project at the National Football Museum.
We’re always looking to grow the pool of young people, educators and cultural partners we work with. If you’re Manchester-based and driven to bring arts and culture to every young person in the city, we want to hear from you!
Get in touch with us at mademcr@z-arts.org to find out how you can get involved.
