Creative projects at Moulsecoomb Primary School
University of Brighton students have been fulfilling classroom helper roles at Moulsecoomb Primary School for a number of years. This has proved very useful for those who want to gain experience for possible future teaching roles.
Recently, the student's involvement has expanded into other areas through the 'On our doorsteps' project which encourages students to be good neighbours.
One of the pieces of work has been a giant 'snakes and ladders' board game which was dreamed up by one of the university's art students. Seven students came in to the school for the day and worked with groups of ten children to create the giant outdoor game.
Lucy Rayner from Moulsecoomb Primary said "the children have such good ownership of the game because they helped to create it, and they got on really well with the students. The kids have very limited experience of university students and this was a great opportunity to meet them in a non-threatening environment."
In another recent project, students from the Creative Media MA courses worked with year four pupils to explore international culture.
The seven students from Angola, Saudi Arabia, Lithuania, Serbia, Cyprus, Scotland and England volunteered to help with the project as part of their degree course module in Participatory Media Production for Social Change.
The students shared their knowledge about their countries and cultures with a group of year 4 pupils at Moulsecoomb Primary School. The children are currently learning about India, and were given cameras to make a short film about the country, using artefacts they had brought to the session.
The students edited all the footage taken by the children to create a short DVD which the school will use an educational resource.
The project was, part of On our doorsteps which is a new initiative led by the university's Community University Partnership Programme (Cupp). It focuses on funding and collaborating with very local community projects (all within neighbourhoods close to university buildings).
Dave Wolff, director of Cupp said "On our doorsteps shares resources and expertise with communities experiencing significant need in these challenging economic times."
