Brigidin Crowther, Specialist Industry Engagement Consultant
Joe Gradwell, Lead Media Arts Teacher
Narrator: Sheffield Consortium work with a broker organisation to plan and run tours around a range of creative and media workplaces.
Brigidin Crowther: The tour is a fantastic opportunity to visit a wide range of different kinds of creative producers, so we might stop off and see a photographer, a graphic designer, a games company or a multimedia company working in animation.
Joe Gradwell: The learners went on a tour of the Cultural Industries Quarter, went to a range of different companies and organisations. It’s really useful for them to be able to get behind closed doors, places where they wouldn’t normally be allowed to go, to really see for themselves what goes on in all these little media companies in different parts of the Quarter and really, sort of, see there are ways in and that they can be a part of it.
Brigidin Crowther: It’s really important that practitioners can help to shape the tour. We want to try and customise the tour to their own interests and needs. If their learners are particularly interested in photography or games or multimedia and web design then we make sure that that is an important part of the tour.
Employer: Right, if you’d like to stand over there. So a normal film’s about this big and you’ll see some films a little later. Now the film that they're watching in there is through this digital projector here...
Brigidin Crowther: Our task is to organise and design the tours as part of the support that’s available for the schools involved in the Creative and Media Diploma. The funding comes from the consortium pool.
Employer: I’d like you to try and work either with a partner or in threes...
Brigidin Crowther: We have some great contacts with local businesses in the creative and media sector. Built over time, some excellent relationships, so we nurture those relationships and we involve them and, generally speaking, they‘re very keen and interested in the new Diplomas and want to see how the skills of the future are being developed and play a part in that.
Narrator: The broker organisation works with the employers to plan the different parts of the tour. This means that details, such as how many learners can be accommodated and what they will actually be doing at each employer they visit, are carefully considered.
Worker: Because I wanted to do an art kind of degree you do what you call a foundation year where you do a bit of everything like ceramics, fashion design and things like that, or like fine art painting. You have a bit of a go at everything, so that was that.
Then I went to Manchester and did a course called Illustration and Animation, did some community art with guys about the same age as you lot, did like a few murals and things like that. Then decided to get into this caper. Originally I worked for another company and I worked there for free for like about three weeks and eventually they said, "Do you want a job?".
Brigidin Crowther: It’s a fantastic opportunity to see different kinds of creative professionals in their own working environments. How do they work? How do they make a creative life? What opportunities are there in the sector? There’s nothing better than that real experience for learners.
Joe Gradwell: The tours offer the learners the chance to just see and do for themselves. To see the people who make and produce lots of things that they are consumers of, and to give them perhaps a chance to think to themselves, this is something I could do. It’s a good chance to get really informed about what’s out there and what the possibilities are and what the expectations are of you when you're working in those environments and what you’ll need in terms of qualifications. And one guy just took us right back to what GCSE’s he got, what A-Levels he got, what foundation course he did, what degree course he did and then how he got a job with an actual media company. And for students to realise that it’s a journey and it’s a progression, and that they have to start thinking about that now and getting ready for that now, is very important and very worthwhile.
Learner: I liked to see the places where people worked because it gave you an idea of how that work was and how the atmosphere was and stuff. And that it wasn’t all brutal or boring, it was just like, the people were friendly and you got the idea of what kind of work their doing and what kind of environment they do it in.
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