Event Details

The first of two workshops exploring the way Lancaster & Morecambe responded to the covid-19 school closures. This storytelling session will give attendees the chance to hear the experiences of children and teachers, as well as what it was like to deliver a response throughout the pandemic.

Earlier this year, the Connecting Kids Project responded to the urgent educational needs of children in Lancaster and Morecambe during the school shutdown earlier this year. The partnership behind this project strived to engage children and teachers in the design of solutions and the support they needed. This was particularly important for the ‘project in a box’ element of the project. ‘Project in a box’ engaged, excited and connected with children isolated at home through a box of creative materials and open prompts. 500 boxes were delivered full of creative materials, unusual items and open-ended visual prompts: all designed in collaboration with children and teachers. These boxes continue to evolve as we build and distribute more and more boxes.

This interactive storytelling session will be a chance to hear from teachers and children about their experiences of trying to continue their education throughout COVID-19 and their experiences of contributing to the design of the boxes. Alongside this, academics from Lancaster’s design and linguistics departments will reflect on the principles of codesign and asset-based engagement, which were applied throughout this project: what worked and what did not.

The session will be an honest discussion of the joys and frustrations of trying to work in an open and ‘as flat as possible’ partnership when under the various time-frame, logistical and emotional pressures of COVID-19. It will be a chance to truly listen to what pupils and teachers missed and hated about the school lockdowns, but also what they discovered and learnt. It will set the scene for a more interactive workshop on co-design later in the day but it is not compulsory to attend both; each will be interesting in their own right.