The exhibition includes around 200 paintings, collages, sketches, photographs and sculptures, created by children from St Aloysius Catholic Primary School and Oxford High School. The children were asked to think about and respond in their artwork to what mattered to them, and we are delighted to share the playful, vibrant and thoughtful pieces they have created. The online exhibition was curated and developed by 3rd year Oxford Brookes University Fine Art students Izzy Reeve, George Fitzsimons and Laura Smith. Let us know what you think of the exhibition by commenting in our virtual visitor's book.

Our Futures, Our Lives: Rethinking schooling for a post-pandemic world

In this talk I want to start with a simple but important question: what's the meaning of life? I want to follow this question by asking: does schooling prepare young people for a meaningful life in the future? By exploring these questions, I will first consider how going to school encourages us to imagine particular futures for ourselves, or to orient ourselves towards particular goals and dreams for the future, such as jobs, relationships, material wealth, and so on. I then want to take a critical look at this picture of the future, and explore how we might think, imagine, and dream about the future in different ways. Given the sudden shocks and changes brought about by the 2008 financial crisis, Brexit, populist politics, conflict, environmental crisis, and the pandemic, I argue that the future is particularly difficult to predict at the moment. However, at school children and young people are still encouraged to think about the future as something that is very predictable - even though their own experiences of cancelled exams, closed universities, and disappearing jobs suggests the opposite. With this tension in mind, I want to consider the positive possibilities of seeing the future as something that is authored by young people in the present, often through the kinds of 'productive dissent' shown by Greta Thunberg and other youth activists. Finally, I want to argue that it is the challenge for schools and teachers to harness and embrace the principles of this positive youth movement for change, and to build better, more meaningful lives into the future work of schools.

Biography

Patrick Alexander is Reader in Education and Research Lead for the School of Education, with oversight for research and knowledge exchange activity. Patrick is also Director of the Centre for Educational Consultancy and Development (CECD), where he leads professional learning activity.

Patrick is a social anthropologist specialising in education, childhood and youth. His research and teaching interests include the sociology of schooling, youth transitions and youth subcultures, gender, ethnography, and social theory. Patrick also researches knowledge production and professional learning in schools.

Patrick's most recent research explores schooling in the UK and United States, with a focus on how young people imagine the future and how they are socialised to anticipate particular future outcomes through the process of schooling. His 2020 book 'Schooling and Social Identity: Learning to Act Your Age in Contemporary Britain' addresses this theme and links to the CYP Network launch focus on children's lives and children's futures.

Cultural figures and art education experts discussed children's and young people's responses to the question: Why does art matter? Panelists include art historian and TV presenter Dr Janina Ramirez; Samantha Cairns, Co-Director, Cultural Learning Alliance; Juli Beattie OBE, Director of AT The Bus; Vicki Shotbolt, CEO of Parentzone, and Liz Macfarlane, President of NSEAD.

Panelist Biographies:

Janina Ramirez is a cultural historian, broadcaster and author based at the University of Oxford with a passion for communicating ideas about the past. Janina’s research began with a degree in English literature at Oxford, followed by an MA and PhD at the Centre for Medieval Studies in York on the art, literature and culture of Anglo-Saxon England. But her interests have constantly branched outwards in all directions as she has taught more broadly on everything from classical architecture to the work of Tracey Emin. Broadcasting has allowed Janina to see narrative threads stretching across time and disciplines, and to find shared human concerns, themes, problems and innovations throughout time. There’s one word that has appeared in every school and university report Janina ever had: ‘enthusiastic’. She wants to share this enthusiasm.

Juli Beattie is the founder director of AT The Bus: an Oxford and London based charity delivering art as therapy to children with complex needs via The Beattie method – from a specially refurbished double decker bus. Arriving as a child refugee from Hungary in 1956, Juli trained as a teacher, and spent 40 years working as a therapeutic educator in mainstream and specialist schools and hospitals before setting up the national charity The Art Room. Juli was awarded an honorary doctorate from Bath Spa University in 2015 for her outstanding contribution to the arts, and an OBE in 2016 in recognition of her contribution to the welfare and education of young people. She believes all young people should have access to art.

Liz Macfarlane is currently President of NSEAD and a freelance art and design education consultant working with primary and secondary schools and academies across the country to provide support and bespoke CPD. She is a member of the expert subject advisory panel for Ofqual. Liz has inspected for Ofsted and holds the Professional Qualification for School Inspectors. She is also co-author of the ‘Cambridge International AS and A’ Level Art and Design Student’s Book’. Prior to this she taught in secondary schools in Leicestershire and was the National Coordinator for Visual Arts and Media with Specialist Schools and Academies Trust.

Sam Cairns has worked in the cultural sector for 20 years - starting in museum education and then working in libraries, archives and the arts. She has run the Cultural Learning Alliance since 2011 and led the development of the Cultural Learning Alliance’s Key Research Findings: the case for cultural learning (2017). Sam project managed and compiled Space for Learning: a new handbook for creating inspirational learning spaces (2015) and Space for Learning Covid Guidance (2020). Sam was Project Director for Phase 1 of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation (UK Branch) Inquiry into the Civic Role of Arts Organisations, and Project Manager of RSA Learning About Culture for a year in 2019. She is a member of the Artsmark assessment Panel, a Heritage Fund mentor and a primary school governor. The Cultural Learning Alliance champions a right to arts and culture for every child.

Vicki Shotbolt is the founder and CEO of Parent Zone, an organisation that sits at the heart of digital family life. She has worked in parenting for over twenty years establishing Parent Zone in 2004 to support parents with their digital parenting. She sits on the executive board of the UK Council for Internet Safety and is the co-chair of the Digital Resilience Working Group. Vicki co-hosts Tech Shock, a podcast that looks at the impact of digital technologies on family life and unpicks the issues for parents, teachers, professionals and policymakers.

When Henry finds his mum looking through her memory box, it leads to a conversation which not only helps them to express and understand their feelings about the loss of Henry’s grandmother but also to explore the power of play as a way of being together. Henry and his mum use a memory box, a technique GOSH’s play team uses with patients and their siblings at the hospital to help children deal with loss.

Horrid Henry and the Groovy Grandma is a brand new film dealing with the theme of loss, particularly from a children's perspective. We are delighted to bring you a discussion on the making of the film between Lucinda Whiteley, co-founder and Creative Director of Novel Entertainment, George O'Shaughnessy, Oxford-based art therapist, and Alex Bowie, socially engaged artist and School Programme Manager at Dulwich Picture Gallery. Below that is the Q & A session in which Lucinda answered questions about the ideas behind the film and how Horrid Henry is a vehicle for some of the important conversations that children are engaging in.

Read more about the Horrid Henry film and the GOSH Charity Power of Play Hub.

In this session Suzy talked about the work of Oxfordshire Community Foundation, focusing on how the organisation supports children and families in Oxfordshire through its Growing Minds and Getting Oxfordshire Online initiatives. Suzy is a member of the Children and Young People Network Advisory Group.

Biography:

Before joining Oxford Community Foundation Suzy was CEO of a community organisation in Hammersmith and Fulham, involved in delivering projects such as Social Prescribing, Community Champions and forming a Neighbourhood Forum. Prior to that she worked in prisons, courts and in the community to support people with complex needs, and on a project supporting drug and alcohol users. She has degrees in Management and Psychology, and Forensic Psychology.

Suzy has been a trustee at a children’s centre helping families facing homelessness. She now lives in Oxford with her family and is enjoying the benefits of the wonderful Oxfordshire greenery, getting out and about in the parks!

Suzy says: “My role at OCF is the perfect opportunity to bring my experience from the charitable sector to the community in which I now live."

The first part of a wide-ranging and fascinating programme of talks by researchers from the Children and Young People Network at Oxford Brookes University. Talks in this session will include:

• 10.30am The NEW ABC - Young immigrant people as co-creators of artistic and narrative resources for inclusive education, by Professor Guida de Abreu

• 10.45am Empowering Young People With Virtual Storytelling: A Digital Humanities Perspective, by Dr Eric White

• 11.00am Babies' and toddlers' development during the Covid-19 pandemic, by Dr Nayeli Gonzalez-Gomez

• 11.15am Transitions to Adulthood for young people working with Barnardo's, by Katy Burch, Assistant Director of the Institute of Public Care, Oxford Brookes University

• 11.30am Working with children and young people– learning from School Nursing practices and new ways of working in the COVID-19 pandemic, by Professor Jane Appleton, Dr. Sarah Bekaert and Dr Georgia Cook

• 11.45am - 12.00pm Q and A

The second part of a wide-ranging and fascinating programme of talks by researchers from the Children and Young People Network at Oxford Brookes University. Talks in this session will include:

• 1.00pm Investigating children's independent mobility, by Dr Tim Jones

• 1.15pm Q and A

• 1.20pm "Learning to like": How can class shape food socialisation in children? By Dr Irmak Karademir-Hazir

• 1.35pm The effect of diet and physical activity on health outcomes and symptom management in children and young people with chronic conditions, by Dr Shelly Coe

• 1.50pm Q and A

• 1.55pm Colour vision deficiency: the challenges . . . "I coloured the sky purple" By Dr Adam Bibbey #1in12 #1in200

• 2.10pm How the big T can help the big C - Using technology to help children with cancer feel better, by Dr Kim Straun

• 2.25pm Are we all equally well? The physical health needs of children and young people with mental health challenges, by Dr Erin Byrd

• 2.40-2.55pm Q and A

In this short plenary session the panel reflected on the key themes that have arisen from the online exhibition and the programme of discussions. What have we learned about what matters to children and young people? How can we bring that into our work and the work of the Children and Young People Network?

Panellists were: Dr Patrick Alexander, Professor Anna Barnett, Professor Jane Appleton, Claudia Panatti, and Dr Claire Lee.