Case study by Amanda Dale, Films by Last Bus and Framework Productions, 2008.
Making Things Happen - Here tells the story of a large scale multi-school project in two parts. The first part, entitled Friday Morning 8AM, begins with a number of schools from North London being taken on secret journey to meet The Sultan's Elephant in May 2006, captured on film.
The second part of the story takes forward the notions of surprise and sensation experienced on that day into the creation of a borough-wide myth developed by young people from 29 North London schools, which culminated in a high profile street performance in July 2007.
This project, entitled It Can Happen Here, aimed to engage young people as equal partners, working alongside creative practitioners, teachers and one another. One by one each school was invited to develop ideas and make decisions about an aspect of the myth that responded to the previous schools' contributions.
A film and case study report documents the two projects, and follows the practitioners as they designed and created the mythical creatures, school based installations and public performances guided by the pupils' ideas. The learning outcomes for the pupils included raised confidence as a result of being recognised as partners and taking the lead in the process of developing the project.
