A Worcestershire primary school, Dines Green Community Academy, showed off their creative talents with the help of local artist, Yasmin Agilah Hood, at this year’s Worcester City Carnival with a pioneering sustainable float to celebrate all things community.
With its long heritage stretching back over a hundred years, the Worcester Carnival champions all things Worcester with a strong focus on the place and the people who live and work in the city. The 2022 event held in the city centre on Saturday 1st July was the most successful event to date with thousands of local families, schools and businesses rallying to show their support.
This year, Severn Arts, Worcestershire’s innovative charitable arts company dedicated to making culture and the arts more accessible to children and young people across the county, were supporting the event with a new pilot initiative aimed at schools to reinforce the synergy between learning and the community.
An added focus was on a sustainable future and, following a successful collaboration with the Severn Arts Lullaby, part of the Light Night Worcester project last October, Dines Green Community Academy were asked to create a fully sustainable ‘float’ under the guidance of Severn Arts Director, Elaine Knight.
Moving away from the usual diesel-powered floats this demonstrated a more considered and ethical approach to the carnival procession but without compromising on impact or creativity. Severn Arts put the project out to tender for local artists to come on board to work on this and local artist, illustrator and designer, Yasmin Agilah Hood, was chosen to partner with Dines Green Community Academy to bring the vision to life. Her passion and energy for storytelling through drawing, collage and paint inspired the primary school pupils and together a series of sustainable floats were realised.
Building on Worcester’s rich heritage the Dines Green pupils came up with the theme ‘Celebrate our City’ and demonstrated a colourful array of different vehicles to celebrate this with models inspired by trams, used in the city until the late 1920s. These were adorned with references to the city’s architecture with a model of the iconic gold library building, The Hive. The floats also told a visual story of the River Severn and how pollution is affecting the city’s wildlife. Each float was powered by a sustainable source, including trikes and bikes propelled by parents and children from the school.
Emma Grace, Deputy Headteacher at Dines Green Community Academy, comments;
“This presented the ideal opportunity for us to bring together elements across the curriculum such as community values, our local environment and our history by looking at the World around us. Working with Yasmin was incredible and provided the children with an inspiring approach and was a huge bonus for us as a school community. It was a privilege to be part of the pilot scheme from Severn Arts to spearhead such an important and sustainable initiative.”
Dines Green Community Academy, part of the Mercian Educational Trust has previously announced an exciting new chapter for the school with some positive changes to be introduced for the start of the next academic year with a new school name and branding being revealed at an event on Tuesday 6th September.
Andrew Morley, Headteacher at Dines Green Community Academy; comments;
“As September is fast approaching, we have a robust and dynamic plan in place to secure a positive future for our school. This will present the opportunity to consolidate our community focus even further. It will also demonstrate a sustainable and environmentally considered vision for our school to build on the foundations we have established and the creative ideas resulting from our recent collaboration with Severn Arts.”
For further information, please contact Vicki Beswick at Nexus Creative on 01905 821 919 or [email protected]