Go STRAIGHT to An event page BELOW or read down for an overview of the Festival:
A day of short talks on teaching creative subjects and teaching creativity and the role for creativity in careers and society. MORE >>
A dance party with DJ Jerry Dammers (Ex The Specials) and Dr Dance Peter Lovatt. MORE >>
Launch of UK wide #ILOVEART action with $1m TED proejct led by French Street Artist JR. MORE >>
OUR WORD OF THE YEAR IS: 'TOGETHER'
A Festival: for Creative Schools, Work and Lives for children, parents, teachers, creatives and businesses that will build on our previous events in Liverpool, Sunderland, Ironbridge and Canary Wharf.
A Celebration: Of the power of Creativity, Tech and People to Inspire Children, Innovate Business and Engage Communities.
A Collaboration: 23-24 Feb 2018 : 3 days in London's freshest creative hub and Knowledge Quarter in Kings Cross
AMAZING SPEAKERS
Too many to include them all here:
- Jaz-Ampaw Farr - Educationalist
- Lord Andrew Adonis
- Mark Anderson - Creative EdTech
- Azeem Azhar - Exponential View
- Geoff Barton - ASCL
- Sir Peter Bazalgette - Chair ITV
- Phil Beadle - Dissident Creative
- Chris Dyson - Community Headteacher
- Mark Earls - Herdmeister
- Vic Goddard - 'Educating Essex'
- Winnie Greer - Signing Science Teacher
- Madeleine Holt - More than a Score
- Ian Livingstone CBE - Gaming Guru
- Stephen Lockyer - Primary Creative Leader
- Dr Peter Lovatt - Dr Dance
- Ann Mroz - TES
- Tom Morley - Artist/Scritti Politti
- Adah Parris - Futurist
- Matthew Taylor - CEO The RSA
- And more...
And a party with:
- Jerry Dammers - Band Leader (ex Specials)
READ ALL ABOUT IT
A gathering of likeminds for talks, workshops, performances, art action and a dance.
Oh yes, we're going to talk dance and walk dance at this festival, with a monster party.
Have a browse through the key parts of the festival below and download the event brochure up there.
Each section of the festival has its own page on this web site which you can check out which we'll be updating as we go as we have some amazing speakers left to announce.
We still have a few spaces in our Creative Schools/Creative Lives Shorts sessions and may even run a TeachMeet style roulette wheel and pull people out of the audiences on the fly so do sign up for them below.
But be sure to sign up here for updates and get your tickets here now
And watch these spaces, we have many more speakers to announce.
SIGN UP HERE. NOW. NOW. NOW.
Keep up to date on Festival updates
Media FRIENDS
SHARING IS CARING
Supporter organisations
FESTIVAL OVERVIEW
Check out each section of the festival here and click through for more info.
FRI DAY : STEAM Co. DAy
A day of creative activities and short talks staged by local artists/businesses and hosted by a school in Kings Cross for groups of KS2 primary children from across the UK with their teachers and carers.
This is a strictly ticketed event and not open to the public. Photo ID will be required.
FRI EVE : SCREENING/DEBATE
Join us at the British Library to see the creative education documentary 'Most Likely to Succeed' featuring High Tech High and Sir Ken Robinson and join the debate afterwards to discuss it with a guest panel.
Proudly hosted in partnership with the grassroots teacher movement #BrewEd
SAT AM : 'Creative Schools'
Enjoy and be inspired by a line-up of world-class talks/ performances/ workshops At #ARTCONNECTS HQ in King's Cross..
Local and national speakers, teachers, parnets and artists will showcase the amazing work being done to promote creativity in our school communities and why.
SAT EVE : #DANCECONNECTS
We can't have a creativity festival and not have a dance. We'll be led by the amazing Dr Peter Lovatt - 'Dr Dance' at Hertfordshire University in a secret location in Kings Cross.
Our DJ line up is to be confirmed but expect to dance to everything from Disco to Capoeira, Jive to Country and Electro to Northern Soul
SAT PM : 'CREATIVE LIVES'
Enjoy, be inspired by and engage with a line-up of world-class talks, performances, workshops by local and national artists/carers showcasing creativity in everyday life and how it powers individuals, businesses and communities.
Hosted by the futurist Adah Parris at #ARTCONNECTS HQ in King's Cross.
WEEKEND : #ILOVEART ACTION
We have just had approval to be supported as an official campaign of arts activism by JR, a leading French graffiti Artists and $1m TED prize winner, who will large format print hundreds of selfies we send him of people/children celebration their art to be displayed around Kings Cross!
Enter your art now. Download the template.
WHO ARE STEAM CO./PEOPLE4ART?
'Leaving No One Behind': Short film of our recent event in Ironbridge.
Seven years ago, a group of carers (people who care about creativity - like parents, artists, techs, employers and teachers) were inspired by a TED talk and half a book to start a movement. We'd met some lovely creative peopl in a field who let us call ourselves 'The Little House of Fairy Tales'.
Three years ago, we realised we weren't little or about fairies and changed our name.
STEAM Co. was born.
We were aware of both the value of creativity, yet the challenges faced in UK schools, and saw an opportunity to bring the conversation out of education echo chambers by connecting schools, businesses and the wider community.
After a wonderful response from across the board and events in Liverpool, Sunderland, Ironbridge, Norwich, etc, a non-profit community enterprise STEAM Co CIC was founded and we are now going to run an event to showcase collective achievements of like minds across the country.
A Pop-Up STEAM Co. Day at Raynham Primary in a London borough
STEAM CO. PROVIDES INSPIRATION AND RESOURCES FOR COMMUNITIES TO RUN STEAM CO. DAYS.
This event will inspire by celebrating the power of creativity, tech and people to engage children, innovate business and connect communities.
And how #ARTconnects.
WHAT'S IT ALL ABOUT?
A 3 day event 23-25 Feb 2018 for children, parents, teachers, creatives and businesses that will build on our previous events in Liverpool, Sunderland, Ironbridge and Canary Wharf.
CO-CURATION COMMITTEE
While committee isn't really a STEAM Co. word, Co-curation is... and the label we've stuck on a bunch of generous, creative and, above all connected, people who have stepped up to help us keep it on the straight and narrow.
Watch this space as we may add a few more, as this plane took off before we'd finished building it and everybody had time to get on:
- Nick Corston (chair) : Co-founder, STEAM Co. CIC
- Susan Coles : Arts Activist NSEAD
- Martyn Ware : Artist, Musician Illustrious
- Rachel Snape : Head Learner, The Spinney School
- Azeem Azhar : CEO, Exponential View
- Prof. Dave Hornby : Professor of Biochemistry, University of Sheffield
- Stephen Lockyer : Curriculum Enrichment Leader, Lumen Learning Trust
- Mark Earls : Herdmeister, The Herd
- Kenneth Tharp CBE : Arts Professional, At large
- Mark Anderson - Creative EdTech Guru
- Ty Goddard : CEO, Education Foundation
- Alex Bell - RSA Education Fellow and Portland Education
- Tom Middlehirst : Head of Policy and Public Affairs, SSAT
- Prof Pam Burnard : Professor of Creativity, Cambridge University
- Nick Halkes : CEO/Founder, Incentive Music Management
- Claire Kidd : Design Anthropologist, Naked Leader Organisation
- Chris Sullivan : Writer and Broadcaster, The Wag
- Daryn Simon : Research Academic/Thinker
- Amy Solder : Project Lead, Education Nesta
- Hannah Wilson : STEAM Powered Head, Aureus School
- Nishma Robb : Marketing Director, Google
- Stephen Lockyear : Curriculum Enrichment Leader, Lumen Learning Trust
Amazing people... one is a trained professional dancer and arts organisation CEO, another signed the Prodigy and co-founded the label Adele is signed to, another has built a light house in a class room, another has written books on advertising and creativity, another is mates with Suggs and making a film about the miners uprising in Merthyr Tydfil, another has announced a dream to open an education museum, another co-founded the Human League and another goes under the twitter handle of the 'art criminal'.
Yes a suitably motley crew! The sort of people you need standing behind you in the playgorund when the school bully comes for you. Don't mess.
FAQs : CHILDREN, ACCOMMODATION, TRAVEL
- Schools for the STEAM Co. Day - the STEAM Co. Day on the Friday will be open to any UK school - state or independent and will be limited to around 20 groups of 12 children from each school, plus teachers/carers. You must pre-register below now for consideration and we hope to make a selection to invite a representative sample of schools from a range of settings by the end of December. We hope to not have to charge for this but do not expect to request a donation of more than £150 per school group.
- Children on the Festival weekend - while targetting an adult audience, we will allow all people over the age of 16 to attend the talks with a ticket though we are keen to offer a range of typical STEAM Co. Day type creative activities both for Early Years and primary (KS1/2) and KS2 aged children of attending delegates as well as outside attendees with activity tickets. Again we hope not to have to charge for these but must stress this is not a drop-off creche. We're about community/parental engagement so Festival attendees would have to allocate at least one adult to be/work/play with their children at all times in the creative activity area.
- Accommodation - we're big fans of AirBnB as a community and connection powered business and their #OneLessStranger vibe, indeed it has provided us with many great connections (read about it here). We would love to see and hear about families coming to #ARTCONNECTS from across the UK and staying with family minded AirBnB hosts. There's also a nice Hub by Premiere Inn in Kings Cross with a cool bar/club area to hang out in that is really near all our venues. I would be great to try to stay in one place.
- Ticket prices - we want to keep this as low as possible and will depend on sponsorship and other funding. We will have some free tickets for 'unwaged but engaged' artists and carers. Other tickets will be made available on a sliding scale with generous early bird discounts but you MUST sign up now for notification of the early bird ticket release dates.
- FAQ - If you have any other questions please let us know in the form below or email us at 'yourturn at steamco dot org dot uk '
CARING IS SHARING
Do get in the groove by watching the trailer film above and do like/share this for us on Facebook and Twitter.
As we say, 'Likes are nice, but caring is sharing'.
Partners
We’re talking to and collaborating with may organisations in the Kings Cross Knowledge Quarter which is the focal point for one of the greatest knowledge clusters anywhere in the world. (Yes, just think about what is happening in a one mile radios of the British Library).
Local companies and organisations include Google and The Guardian, Francis Crick Institute and The British Library, Havas and UCL, Camden Council HQ and Paul Hamlyn Foundation.
Expect to see a lot of them, their people and projects there. With us. Together.
In addition to all the generous organisations and people who have come together to support us we're looking for three headline sponsors and ten supporter sponsors to help us pull this off.
But the support of our three early media partners has been fantastic.
- TES - We'll be working on a range of articles and news pieces with the UK's broadest church when it comes to the complex education scene
- Netmums - We're so pleased to still be working with the UK's leading online parent community who have partnered us since our launch at the Royal Institution.
- The Drum - the support of the UK's marketing world is going to be key and The Drum have been great partners. They're now the UK's leading marketing magazine, web site and community and have made a couple of films for us already and encouraging agencies to run STEAM Co. Days for local school.
See the clip here of a film the Drum's Editor in Chief (and fellow dad) Gordon Young made for us the month that Prince Andrew Edited the magazine for them.
Exhibition
In the spirit of connection, we will have a few pop up banner spaces to showcase the work of individual artists who work with schools as well as a range of carefully chosen partners who inspire, innovate and engage. Sign up below for info.
It's always about one thing... Connection
If you're intrigued by the event, and haven't seen this inspiring 60 second film by Seth Godin talking about how art connects, do watch it now.