We had a great idea - to run a UK tour to get everyone behind our children, our teachers and and our brave school leaders, who understand and value creativity in our schools, work and lives.

But after a year of Covid and paying for PPE and supply teachers with already limited funds, our schools are broke and we didn’t get a second Culture Recovery Fund Grant as we asked for too much so we’re reaching out for help - as little as a pound to help us inspire our kids.

So we launched an appeal for sponsors.

TOUR SPONSORSHIP APPEAL

On Thursday 20th May we launched an appeal at the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, to help launch a Creativity Revolution in the UK to inspire our Kids, Create Jobs and Connect Communities.

We appealed to Creative Carers - people who care about Creativity, Children and All Our Futures to help fund our #InspiredToLearn21 Tour of School Communities across the UK through the Summer and Autumn terms.

HOW YOU CAN HELP FUND THIS FROM £1

Here are four ways you can support our work to deliver this tour next term and through the summer holidays into the Autumn.

• Creative Carer Patreon - for as little as £1 a month you can support our work here (For a fiver we’ll send you a T-shirt ;-)

• Half Day Sponsor - for just £300 you can pay for one of our live half day sessions with assembly, rocket workshop for a class and a real rocket launch here

• Full Day Sponsor - for £750 you can pay for one of our half days sessions with assembly, a day of 4 creative activities for the whole school and a real rocket launch here

• Tour Sponsor for £7,500 you can join US Space Mission Inspiration4 as one of our three tour sponsors and help us really go to town with this after half term and into the summer holidays here

If you have any queries on the above do email us on yourturn@steamco.org.uk

IF YOU’RE A SCHOOL

And you would like one of these free or part paid session to engage and inspire and connect your community then SIGN UP HERE NOW

Here’s a short film of one of our Live Streamed #AimHigh21 Sessions at Millbrook Primary in Cheshunt.

Want to knoW more? Read on

We’re off our Summer and Autumn term tours to inspire the nation thanks to Arts Council England, The National Lottery, DCMS, HM Treasury and LGfL who supported us through lock-down.

Like Coventry cathedral did after the last global crisis, we’re rising from the ashes and delighted to offer every School Community in the UK the following:

1. #AIMHIGH21 Live Streamed Assembly - a 45 minute session as if by magic from our cardboard Coventry cathedral as if on your school playing field to your class bubbles and community homes. Books, Science, Art, robots, rockets, pianos - even a bit of Sir Elton John’s tinkling!

2. #ROCKETKIDS21 Live Creativity Day - an assembly live steamed from your hall to class bubbles and families at home followed by half and full day hands on creative sessions, finishing with an off the scale dynamite powered community rocket launch. All covid secure, curriculum connected and more than a little Ofsted friendly.

3. UK Tour - in the Summer and Autumn Terms we are going to drive from Cornwall to Scotland, via Wales and hopefully across to Northern Ireland visiting and inspiring school communities across the UK. Anyone want to sponsor us?

4. Festival appearances - we’re lined up to appear at more festivals than you can shake a joss stick at (Ludlow Fringe, Bigfoot and Camp Bestival, etc), more on that to follow, but why not take this opportunity to get us in to run one of our days - a mini creativity festival for your community like we did in the film above a few years ago on Teesside.

Read on or SIGN UP HERE NOW to make and enquiry/book.

CATCHING UP OR FLYING HIGH?

We don’t think our kids should be catching up this term up as much as jumping up, aiming as high as they can, flying higher than high, by being Inspired to Learn.

Not worrying too much about the rules, not fearing failure - because we’re all here to catch them if they fall and to encourage them to have another go.

And key to that is helping them find their passion, their element, we call it their art, which could be painting or photography, cooking or coding, dance, design or DJing, robots or rockets.

SUMMER TERM TOUR

Yes, that’s what our #InspiredToLearn21 Summer Term of Live streamed and Live assemblies is all about.

All launched on Monday 19th April at Prince of Wales School in Dorset as in the film above, the school with possibly the noisiest corridors in the UK - where their children behave because they are Inspired to learn.

There are two elements to this:

PART 1: #AIMHIGH21 Live StreamED ASSEMBLY

A 45 minute all school community assembly that we’ll live stream from our cardboard cathedral set up in your playground to your class bubbles in Zoom, Teams or Meet and families homes in a secure YouTube stream.

Talks about:

• The million dollar question - What’s Your Art?

• How art connects and isn’t just about paint

• How your art could make you some money, some friends and the world a better place

• The inspiring story of Sir Elton John and his art

• My first trainset

• See a real Lego Robot that can solve a Rubik’s Cube

• How Coventry Cathedral rose from the ashes after a crisis

• The Golden Generation - every child will get a certificate to celebrate what they did in lockdown

• Film of the tower of Coventry Cathedral blasting off like a rocket

We have, well had, 21 of these to give away free, but if you can help us and our non-profit work we’d appreciate a £50 donation for this.

Read on or SIGN UP HERE NOW to make and enquiry/book.

PART 2: #RocketKids21 ACTIVITY Day

If we’re going to stay the day, we’ll set our green screen studio up in your school and live stream an all school assembly telling the story of the Rocket Boys and the Art of other inspiring creative men and women. For a half day session we’ll do a regular assembly to a class bubble in your hall.

This will go to your class bubbles via Zoom, Meet or Teams and family homes via a secure YouTube link.

If we stay for just half a day, one class will get the chance to make and fire epic paper rockets before we rush off to the next school.

If you book us to stay the whole day we’ll bring our whole internet television studio and show you a few of our green screen secrets and include coding, design and inventing activities for the whole school to try too

• The #ARTofROCKETS - make and fire a paper air rocket over 200 feet in the air with our exclusive launcher system.

• The #ARTofCODING - learn to code a BBC;Micro-bit - the £15 mini computer you can wear

• The ARTofINVENTING - a creativity workshops with wold famous Inventor Dominic Wilcox

• The #ARTofDESIGN - join our $1m global project with French Artists JR to turn the world inside out with YOUR art

• The #ARTofUKULELE - learn to play the Ukulele - we can bring a few Ukes - you’ll just need a teacher who’s not fearful of failing

• The #ARTofBOOKS - we’ll show your children (and teachers) how to make their own picture books using our secret origami technique!

At the end of either session we’ll include a real dynamite rocket launch for your whole school community to get everyone buzzing with enthusiasm and passion to be Inspired to learn together.

Read on or SIGN UP HERE NOW to make and enquiry/book.

UK TOUR DATES

Below is our provisional plan and itinerary.

We can accommodate other requests and areas within and around this, especially on the way somewhere else so sign up here now with an enquiry or booking

Provisional tout dates tbc

PARLIAMENT LAUNCH EVENT

Take a look at our live streamed event from Committee Room 14 in the Houses of Parliament (sort of) below:

DONATIONS

We were grateful to the above organisations who not only helped us get through lock down but completely re-engineer our community engagement model to an innovative hybrid on and offline model..

But that money ran out so we’re back on our own two feet moving forward.

As a non-profit community enterprise we request donations and sponsorship to support our work of £300 for the half day session and £750 for the whole day for a single form entry primary (please enquire for two and three form entry schools).

This exclude travel and a £25 AirBnB locally so why not split this with other schools in your trust or cluster?

Read on or SIGN UP HERE NOW to make and enquiry/book.

Key themes across all sessions:

• Literacy - Key reading together focus

• Vocation - Links to STEAM skill subjects and careers in Science, Tech, Engineering, Art and Maths

• Catch up – gives children access to opportunities many missed in lock down

• Happy staff – from the shreaks we hear every time, it’s clear they love these days as much as the kids do!

• Ofsted friendly – aligns with 3i’s of new Framework – cultural capital, broad curriculum and community engagement

• Safe - Covid Secure, Risk Assessed, Fully Insured, Enhanced DBS and GDPR/E-safety assessed live streaming.

ANY QUESTIONS?

Here are some of the most common questions we get:

• We don’t use Zoom - we can live stream to Microsoft Teams or Google Meet too

• Will you come to our school? - We will pretend to live stream the ‘AimHigh’ Assembly from a cardboard Coventry cathedral in your playground, but really be in our Community Lock In. But we absolutely will visit you for the RocketKids Session as we haven’t yet worked out how to remotely launch a dynamite rocket safely ;-)

• Is it all safe? - We will send you a full RMS (Risk and Method Statement) prior to any of the session as both have important considerations from both e-safety, GDPR, covid-security and health and safety perspectives that we have fully prepared for

• How much is it? - we are a non-profit community enterprise, and while we had funding for the first part of Covid-19 which enabled us to develop these sessions that funding has stopped and we now need donations to cover our costs. Ideally £50 for the Aim High Session and £300 and £750 for the half/full day RocketKids Sessions (plus a contribution to travel expenses)

• What do we need to provide? We will provide all instructional materials for the creative activities, schools only need to provide some scrap paper and photocopying and drawing/colouring materials.
  

Can you spare a pound a month?

Click here to donate to our Patreon Fund - from as little as £1 a month, or for a little more you could fund one of these sessions or even put another of our Pop-Up Day Drop Trucks.

AN AMAZING SCHOOL

We first came across Prince of Wales School in Dorchester when we saw them on Twitter before Christmas on our #AimHigh20 Tour. They’d only built a full on Santa’s grotto with snow, igloo and ride on train. Yep - you heard that right.

We did a live stream with them to find out more which we kicked off with the Polar Express trailer - what else!

We discovered that everything the school does, led by their super inspiring and creative head teacher Mr Gary Spracklen, it to make sure the children are Inspired To Learn.

Mr Spracklen is one of what we call our #BraveSchoolLeaders - he knows creativity in schools works - it not only inspires children to learn, but gets great results and results in an overall happier school community - teachers and parents.

A happy school is a happy community.

Read more about this wonderful school here and follow Mr Spracklen on Twitter here

AN AMAZING CITy

Following on from the wonderful year in Hull in 2017, this year sees Coventry 2021 as the UK City of Culture and we’re very excited.

We were delighted when another Brave School Leader, Helen Nelson at Joseph Cash Primary in Coventry offered to host our three day #Coventry21 Community Art Festival with a live stream from the school and weekend of talks, performances, workshops and dancing.

Many children made films on green screen for their annual talent show that we live streamed for them as you can see here.

As part of our #InspiredToLearn21 Summer Tour we are looking to twin schools across the UK with school in Coventry.

We’re already twinned Joseph Cash Primary and Prince of Wales School, but others are available.

an amazing year

We learned how to live stream. And managed to keep on connecting kids with their art and our communities with their schools.

We live streamed our own Glastonbury Festival #YourGlasto, we built a green screen telly studio, we took it to Yorkshire in a camper van for our Aim High 20 Festival and Tour where we built a cardboard Mars base Camp 1 and rocket in a school playground and launched it.

And we just built a half size cardboard cathedral in a school playground in Coventry for a Community Art Festival as our contribution to their #Coventry2021 City of Culture Year.

And now we’re taking that on the road for our #InspiredToLearn21 Live and Live Streamed UK Tour as part of this, our #Inspiranation21 Year.