TIN Arts are working with NHS North East and North Cumbria’s Child Health and Wellbeing Network and key regional partners to deliver STAR, innovative cross-sector, locality-based dance and health projects in the North East and Cumbria.
To find out more about STAR as a model of delivery follow this link to a downloadable PDF: STAR Overview
To register your interest in STAR for your school or organisation click here
To access films and reports from 2021-22 click here
STAR 2023-24
The North East and North Cumbria’s Child Health and Wellbeing Network are thrilled to be supporting the delivery of STAR 3 in four schools in Newcastle upon Tyne.
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.
In partnership with TIN Arts, Northern Ballet, Eliot Smith Dance and Children North East, STAR will be delivered at four schools who are 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.
Running from November 2023 through to July 2024, STAR will engage over 1,300 pupils from reception to Year 6 resulting in over 350 workshop sessions. 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.
Dance activity is further enriched through out-of-school activity and family support work.
STAR 3 has been made possible through funding made available by the North of Tyne Combined Authority.
Piloting STAR (2021-22)
The pilot STAR project involved an active research strand that aimed to understand better the physical and mental wellbeing benefits of taking part in dance and wider arts activities and how these support participants through creative and engaging ways to express themselves and develop self-awareness, identity, social and emotional learning skills. As well as supporting young people, this collaborative arts project also supported their families in some of the most deprived neighbourhoods in South Tees.
S.T.A.R. took place in two primary schools based in South Tees: Grangetown Primary and Thorntree Academy. S.T.A.R. built upon each of the partner organisation’s portfolios of work including Children North East’s Poverty Proofing, Northern Ballet’s National Touring of work for children and young people and TIN Arts’ inclusive dance development work focused on increasing access to the arts for wellbeing.
S.T.A.R. was also underpinned by the South Tees HeadStart programme which works across all schools and colleges in delivering an evidenced Academic Resilience curriculum. The three universities involved in leading the Research (Teesside University, University of Huddersfield and Newcastle University) collectively offer a wealth of experience evaluating health and social care interventions and addressing health inequalities.
This unique collaborative project sought to identify new ways of combatting the negative impacts of mental health and will support local communities to thrive.
S.T.A.R. began in June 2021 and ran until August 2022. We are currently reviewing the fundings of the research and aim to share these in late Autumn 2022.
Partners: NHS North East and North Cumbria’s Child Health and Wellbeing Network, Thorntree Academy, Grangetown Primary School, Northern Ballet, Children North East, Public Health South Tees, Teeeside University, University of Huddersfield, Newcastle University, TIN Arts.
Want to know more?
Contact TIN Arts or the network directly to make an enquiry about STAR: [email protected]
Achievements:
January 2022: STAR was a finalist as part of the Health Service Journal Awards ( https://awards.hsj.co.uk/) in the ‘Most Impactful Project Addressing Health Inequalities’ category. Read the full Press Release here.