One year. One hundred and twenty primary school students. One Thousand Words for belonging.
What does it mean to belong? Are there different types of belonging? What is the difference between belonging and ‘fitting in’? What role does language play in a sense of belonging?
Inspired by the 1000 WORDS FOR WEATHER project, Neela went back to Gearies Primary School to work on a multilingual arts project entitled 1000 WORDS FOR BELONGING. Over one year, all of the students in Year 6 explored the concept of ‘belonging’ through playwrighting, poetry and visual art. The project has been documented on instagram and through the creation of a new (upcoming) podcast. The project’s four main strands are outlined below.
‘You Belong Here’ mosaic by Maud Milton and the local community. Location: Gants Hill Library.
Multilingual dictionary of belonging
How many different words and phrases are there for belonging? The students created their own multilingual dictionary of belonging, collecting words and phrases from within the school community. They also made plans for how best to share this dictionary with the world. Working with the legendary mosaic artist, Maud Milton, the dictionary has been embedded into a series of public mosaics. Students engraved and stamped the words from their dictionary into tiles, creating a stunning legacy for the project around Gants Hill. You can see the first mosaic outside Gearies Primary School, the second mosaic at the entrance to Gants Hill Library, and the third mosaic is yet to find it’s forever home. Watch this space!
Playwrighting
Through winter 2023, Year 6 worked in pairs to write 60 short plays and bring 100s of new characters into existence. The focus of this part of the project was on the power of editing and re-drafting. To help students with the re-drafting process, the plays were brought to life by professional actors in a series of script-in-hand showcases hosted at the Pinter Studio in Queen Mary University. Performing dialogue written in 13 different languages the actors showed the students how their writing may be interpreted in performance. The plays told tales of trees that wanted to climb Mount Everest, stories set in a collision between the human world and the alphabet world, and space odysseys through alien landscapes! There were also many stories of precious friendships being forged in unexpected places.
Julie-Yara in rehearsal. Photo by Craig Bernard.
Alin Balascan and Gabriel Àkámọ́ perform in the showcase. Photo by Craig Bernard.
The fabulous cast included Gabriel Àkámọ́, Julie-Yara Atz , Alin Balascan, KC Chan, Bayo Gbadamosi, Jarvey Joel, Anu Kiraha, Hiftu Quasem, Arinder Sadhra, and Andrei Zayats. The performances were co-directed by Neela and Talia Randall. Photographs of the rehearsals and performances were taken by Craig Bernard.
Poetry
Year 6 also spent the year reading poetry and creating their own poetry portfolios. Every student in Year 6 contributed one poem from their poetry portfolio for a new anthology called 100 POEMS FOR BELONGING. In writing these poems, the students have discussed what it means to translanguage, sometimes choosing to translanguage between various home languages, or the languages of their friends and peers. The students received poetry advice and feedback from Talia Randall, Anthony Anaxagorou and Nina Mingya Powles. Inviting these poets into the classroom to meet and support our young writers was a wonderful experience that the students readily referred back to as they re-drafted their work. A group of translators were on hand to check all our poems before they went to print. You can read more about 100 POEMS FOR BELONGING - and find out how to read it - here.
Podcast
Insights from the 1000 WORDS FOR BELONGING project are being documented in a new 4-part podcast, due for release in late 2024. The podcast will explore multilingualism in arts education and will include conversations with students, teachers, artists, and academics. Each episode will be practical in focus, sharing stories of multilingualism in the classroom. Many schools in England still have posters on the walls that state ‘students must speak in English at all times’. This podcast will speak directly to the message in those posters, fighting against the policing of language as a form of behaviour policy.
1000 WORDS FOR BELONGING is supported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England and a grant from the University of London’s Knowledge Exchange fund.
You can follow our 1000 WORDS FOR BELONGING antics on Instagram @words4belonging.
Hiftu Quasem in rehearsal. Photo by Craig Bernard.