Person-Centred in Practice
Supported by Royal Opera House Bridge, we collaborated with external evaluator, Mary Paterson, and one of our partners, The Wyvern School, to explore an embedded approach to arts evaluation, putting student voice at the centre of our inclusive practice.
Published 28/11/2022
Embedding Student Voice in Arts Evaluation
During our Connect Project (2021), we identified that whilst we were including the creative voices of our participants at the centre of all our work, we were not directly asking them for their input when reflecting on our projects and programmes. We felt that we were lacking in methods and resources to meaningfully reflect with our participants, and often relied on the voices of teachers, support staff and parents to assess the impact of our work.
Student watches her choreography on screen and performs a stretch
Student watches her choreography on screen and performs a stretch
Where did we start?
The project began with some key questions:
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How can we find inclusive communication methods, to listen and respond to students in a meaningful way throughout projects?
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How can the voices of our participants influence and shape our projects and practice?
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How can we share the story and impact of our work?
“[Confidance were] interspersing evaluation throughout the project but in a really connected way.”
Teacher feedback
What did we do?
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Reflected on our current evaluation tools, asking ourselves ‘what are we already doing? What don’t we know how to do?’
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Talked to experts and stakeholders: Mary Paterson (External evaluator); Wyvern School; ConfiCo artists, and other inclusive organisations (namely Totally Inclusive People & Mind the Gap) to learn from their experience.
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Tested and developed new tools and ways of listening to our participants, audiences and all the people that create the bigger picture of our work. We tested these out alongside a dance project with 6th Form students, gathering their feedback and learning from them.
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Hosted an online CPD event, to share our learning with other arts organisations and educators.
Student connects with the group in our Youth Community Class
Student connects with the group in our Youth Community Class
“The opportunities for self-reflection were really helpful and allowed me to link what you were talking about to my practice.”
CPD Event attendee
Resource Booklet
We developed a free resource booklet for arts organisations and educators, sharing our learning and offering insight into how person-centred evaluation methods can lead to more engaging, creative artistic outcomes.
Our CPD event aimed to de-mystify arts evaluation, allow people time to reflect on their own practices and offer tangible tools for capturing the impact of projects.
Check out the resource booklet here:
“I’m doing more evaluating in my projects than I realised! It’s just about collating and sharing it effectively.”
CPD Event attendee
