Established in 2021, STAR promotes the physical and mental wellbeing benefits of taking part in dance and enables young people to express themselves and develop self-awareness, identity, social and emotional learning skills.
STAR is an NENC Child Health and Wellbeing Network initiated programme, led by TIN Arts in partnership with a range of organisations including Children North East and Northern Ballet, working together to deliver STAR, an innovative cross-sector, locality-based dance and health project in the North East and Cumbria.
To find out more about STAR as a model of delivery click here to view our downloadable PDF: STAR Overview V3
To make an enquiry about STAR: [email protected]
To access films and reports from the STAR pilot click here
STAR 2023-24
From September 2023 – July 2024, STAR was delivered in four schools in Newcastle upon Tyne. The four schools were all part of the West End Schools Trust: Bridgewater Primary School, St John’s Primary School, St Paul’s C of E Primary School and Wingrove Primary School.
Over an eight-week period, supported by a professional dance artist, pupils will explore key areas from the Resilience Framework with key stage 2 pupils looking at the themes of identity and being true to yourself, and key stage 1 pupils learning about inclusion and exclusion.
Using for inspiration Northern Ballet’s new productions of Merlin (Key Stage 2 pupils) and Ugly Duckling (Key Stage 1 pupils), children will explore dance, express their creativity and create work to share with their families in school in the final week of the project.
In total 1,293 pupils took parts and 360 dance sessions were delivered. Evaluation and monitoring occured throughout the programme and this will be made available in October 2024.
STAR 3 was funded by the North of Tyne Combined Authority.
Previous iterations of STAR
2021-22: The original pilot in two primary schools based in South Tees: Grangetown Primary and Thorntree Academy.
2022-23: Delivery across three schools, all of whom were part of the Steel River Academy Trust.
Achievements:
January 2022: Finalist – Health Service Journal Awards ( https://awards.hsj.co.uk/) in the ‘Most Impactful Project Addressing Health Inequalities’ category. Read the full Press Release here
2023: Finalist – North East Culture Awards in the ‘Best Arts & Education Partnership’
2024: Finalist – Northern Cultural Education Awards in the ‘Hearts and Minds’ category. https://curiousminds.org.uk/the-northern-cultural-education-awards-2024/