The Boy and The Trainset

The Greatest Gift in the Twelve Days of (Creative) Christmas

Picture the scene. You’ve seen it. It’s Christmas Day, a little lad gets a present that will change his life forever, and others too when it unleashes his imagination.

Do watch the 2 minute film above and read on for the back story

Rewind

55 years ago I had a trainset for Christmas when I was one. Three months prior my dad had foregone three months wages, not to buy the trainset, but to capture the moment on film.

He hadn’t hired in Ridley Scott (who had just discovered his art at college in his early 20’s - see above) and he didn’t use a smartphone (phones were still connected to walls and shared between neighbours in those days). No, he’d bought a Standard 8mm cine camera and projector.

Perfectly timed for Twitter loops at 6 seconds, I’ve spent the last two years showing that clip to thousands of children and young people in a creativity and ‘art of rockets’ talk I’ve been touting round schools and conferences across the country for the non-profit community enterprise STEAM Co. that I co-founded in my son’s primary in Paddington.

The ‘money shot’ in the film is where my dad shows me how to make a bridge…. “using my ‘what?’ children”.

My imagination

So when one of the world’s leading creative companies, Adam & Eve made a film with Elton John for John Lewis about a similar Christmas gift moment in Sir Elton’s creative journey, it was the greatest gift to me.

(Truth be told I’d believed the rumours, that the film would use Sir Elton’s ‘Rocket Man’ in the ad, but was delighted with their choice of ‘Your Song’ because that ‘one’ was for us too. Adam & Eve sure know how to pick a tune).

We made our own version above, with subtitles highlighting the impending Creativity Crisis brewing in our schools that will doubtless ultimately impact our economy and broader society. But who cares?

On the 1st December I set out to see if anyone did and hitched the Pop Up STEAM Co. Day Drop Truck to a space age style rocket car loaned to me via Peugeot’s ad agency Havas and hit the road.

(There’s a rule in adland: they never have more than one client in any one sector. One Baked Beans client, One Car client, etc. But adland knows all about breaking rules so they also say, ‘one’s a client, twos a conflict three’s a specialism’ so maybe, just maybe if we can weave one more creative company into this story, STEAM Co. will be seen, not as exclusive partners, but collaboration specialists and really will have brought our #CollaborateForCreativity campaign to life)

Our first stop was a school in King's Cross, where we held our #ARTCONNECTS Creativity Festival back in February with the support of locals like Google, Havas, The Guardian, UCL and Camden Council who have set up a STEAM Commission, tasked to ensure all their schools understand and can take advantage of the career opportunities presented by these companies on their doorstep.

I was armed with just three of the twenty ￡300 sponsorships I’d hoped to secure in three days to enable me to deliver the half day rockets sessions in two really challenged schools a day between Cornwall and Carlisle.

I therefore proceeded to cold call my way into schools across the country from laybys and ￡20 AirBnB’s. And what a #creativerollercoaster of a journey it was.

While I was under no illusion, one thing that really hit me was seeing first hand how challenged some of our our school communities are and the endless, and often never ending job that school community leaders do.

I'd been particularly touched by a blog in The TES by Siobhan Collingwood, Head Teacher at Morecambe Bay Primary School which described her encounter with a hungry mother in the school hall one morning:

Initially, she just cried. There was no verbal communication, she was simply rocking. After a few minutes, she told me that nothing had happened, but that she had severe tummy pains. 

I was humbled to enter that hall on Day 7 of our tour to the sight of families eating breakfast with their children, in a school that was shortlisted for the TES Healthy Eating School Award 2018. Siobhan told me what Christmas meant to them:

But, on getting my meal deal lunch from the local Sainsburys, I will never forget the sight of three bins on the way out, collecting for three different food banks, one of which had a sack of dog biscuits in it.

Reach for the Stars

In each school I showed my train set film and two Elton John films. In two weeks I asked around 5,000 primary children what one word the John Lewis film meant to them and was blown away by the range of responses.

We also discussed the off the scale ‘Rocket Man’ film that YouTube and Elton John had commissioned from Majid Adin, an Iranian Refugee and film maker which showed how he escaped the horror of his journey and leaving his family behind, by imagining he was a rocket man off to another planet.

An inspirational highlight was the telling the children the true ‘Rocket Boys’ story of how four boys, who didn’t want to be miners in a dead end coal mining town, saw the first Sputnik Satellite in the 1950’s and decided to learn to make rockets from where they went on to work for NASA.

Big screen action

Given the support and connections I’ve made on this STEAM Co. journey, I have come to say that 'serendipity is my rocket fuel', and of course an injection of more than a little generosity from companies as diverse as The Co-op, Google, Barclays and National Grid.

This was certainly the case, but on steroids, when I woke up during this tour to go into a school in Bradford at the invitation of their music teacher, Jimmy Rotherham. He had invited me in after meeting when he made the journey specially down from Bradford for our #CollaborateForCreativity launch event in Brick Lane during the London Design Festival back in September.

Imagine my delight to hear on the radio news that he had been shortlisted for the $1m Global teacher Prize. I made a call and arranged for a 48m2 digital screen to be delivered on the back of an artic' lorry from which we did the #ArtofRockets session for the whole school community. (I put it on my credit card so have 30 days to pay ;-)

Left behind

Every day I posted videos I’d shot and edited on my SmartPhone and laptop until I realised one evening I’d left the power supply in a school in Carlisle. The only place that could get me one in time, ironically was John Lewis. If I ordered it by 8pm it would be ready for collection by 1pm in the store of my choice.

Next morning, I got a text at 7am to say it was ready and waiting for me in the Sheffield branch of John Lewis so I swung by after a visit to a school in the particularly challenged north of the city where 98% of the children don’t have English as a first language being made up primarily of Slovak Romany children. None the less I got the warmest reception from the whole community.

After some dodgy parking on the roof top car park, I picked up my power supply and, never one to leave a department store without a wander round the toy department, saw a couple of things that stopped me in my tracks.

The first thing I clocked was an updated version of a Lego robot kit that a partner at John Lewis had given me in a random act of kindness five years ago and which we use to this day in STEAM Co. #ArtofRobots workshops in schools and a Lego Trainset which I knew would make a perfect present for one little boy.

I was delighted that the manager of the store gave us the trainset to give to a little Yorkshire lad I’d met on a rocket session at his school on the Seacroft estate in Leeds, one of the most challenged communities in the country.

Outstanding ovation

That school is worthy of mention alone for the work of Chris Dyson, their head teacher, the very definition of a whole school community leader. When he took the school over, it was considered failing, with 170 or so excluded children and had padded isolation rooms for troublesome/troubled 6 year old children. He ripped them out and replaced them, he says, “with love”.

There are now no exclusions, the school is in the top 3% of schools for numeracy and last year Ofsted deemed it 'outstanding', for what that's worth (actually quite a lot for school community leaders who are judged by such tick box judgements.

This is a head teacher who, as seen on BBC Look North, lays on a Christmas Party, with reindeers and snow machines, for the whole school community on the Eve of Christmas Eve, knowing that many children simply wouldn't get a hot meal otherwise, let alone a present.

Having had to give Peugeot their car back, I was grateful for a freebie train ticket from LNER and popped up to Leeds for The Parklands Primary Christmas performance of ‘High School Musical’ and was quite frankly blown away.

And I wasn't alone...

The little lad, let’s call him the ‘Parklands Rocket Kid', was clearly pleased with the present I gave him afterwards in Mr Dyson’s office.

And there certainly wasn’t a dry eye in his house when he opened it on Christmas Day or among Twitter viewers who saw the clip his mum tweeted as you'll have seen above at the top of this post, which hopefully convinced you to read all this.

Announcing

So, let's go back to John Lewis and the brilliant work they have done with their films to highlight not only the talent and contribution made by the British Creative Industries but in the process, with the Elton John film particularly, how they have highlighted the role of arts and creative education to the life outcomes of young people, the business world and the wider community.

As quite a contrast to the Parklands Primary school Christmas musical above, here is a version of another TV ad that they made earlier in the year for John Lewis around a (dream) school play - 'Bohemian Rhapsody' (Anyone would think Adam & Eve employed a DJ with all these floor fillers).

Let's be clear, this isn't some sort of class war. STEAM Co. work with independent schools across the country, indeed I had an article published in the Independent Schools Association journal this year.

As Geoff Barton, General Secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders said at our #ARTCONNECTS Conference in King's Cross last year about the fact that nine out of ten state schools had cut one or more arts subjects:

"This isn't happening in private schools...

It's what the parents pay for"

And if you pay tax, it's what you may think you are paying for too.

I do, and would certainly would like to see more arts and creative education in our state schools. Certainly not cuts to these critical skills.

And it's not just me who wants to see these skills being taught.

Here is a clip off Sky News of John Lewis' MD, Paula Nickolds talking about the importance of theatre to retail, in the experience economy and how such creativity is fuelling their business at the opening of their store in the Westfields shopping centre over in London's latest creative hub there in White City, West London.

Like buses, coincidences just keep coming

I was delighted on New Years Day to announce our #ARTCONNECTS19 Festival, a ten day Festival of Creative Schools, Work and Lives to Celebrate and Showcase the Power of Creativity, Technology and People in School Communities across the UK .

Many of the schools I visited on the Twelve Days of (Creative) Christmas UK Tour have committed to run local events during the week before coming up to for weekend of events in West London and White City, John Lewis's latest Westfields home and home to their advertising company Adam & Eve in Paddington (who funnily enough were one of the ten sponsors who chipped in to make the STEAM Co. launch event, masquerading as a betetr parenting event, happen at the Royal Institution five years ago and in the process enable 20 'engaged but unwaged' parents come for free).

On Saturday 9th Feb 2019 the ‘Creative Schools’ Day of #ARTCONNECTS19 for Teachers, Parents and other Creative Carers will look at Teaching Creativity and Teaching Creatively.

This family friendly day will see a programme of inspiring short talks, creative workshops and breath-taking performances by literally the word’s best – not just Jimmy Rotherham but art teacher. Andria Zafirakou who actually won the $1m Global Teacher Prize last year, alongside the Times Ed Supplement (TES) Creative School of the Year from Formby in Liverpool, as well as their Community School of the Year who are just a few fields from Glastonbury's Pyramid stage in Somerset and many others.

Where else?

The venue? TES School of the Year and Specialist Creative School, Kensington Aldridge Academy at the foot of Grenfell Tower, and only recently reopened after almost Herculean effort by the staff, young people and local community.

In line with the school’s entrepreneurial ethos it also hosts an incubation hub for local start-ups to create opportunities for its students and the community it serves. We’ll be renting an office space for the next 30 days and they’ll be helping connect us with a team of interns, some who might have degrees but need experience and a break or young people who didn’t get to university at all.

Give them a break?

We’ll be reaching out for sponsorship to fund a Living London wage for them for the period of this project and do what we can to help them turn this experience into employment in the local area, one of London’s most vibrant and diverse creative communities.

Sunday will see the ‘Creative Work and Lives’ Day hosted at London’s New Creative Campus, White City Place on the site of the old BBC Centre. Billed as a 'Creative Family Funday' visitors will be able to enjoy short talks from inspirational leaders in creative industries like fashion, music, photography and football as well as take part in a range of creative workshops.

But the highlight of the Festival will surely be the launch event on Friday 1st Feb in Parliament where, alongside a line up of distinguished speakers from education, industry and government, that little lad from Leeds will set up his train set and tell everyone what it means to him.

And why creativity is the greatest gift.

Yes, we’re now less than 30 days from the event. We launched the plane before we’d finished building it but if as adults, we can’t model a 'no fear of failure' attitude to our young people then who are we to tell them want do to as we enter the Fourth industrial Revolution where that and other critical skills like creativity, collaboration and curiosity will be, well, critical.

If you’d like to get involved, maybe by being one of the sponsors we now need to find to pull this off in fine style, or to volunteer some of your team or to just help get the word out, get in touch via the enquiry form at: wwwsteamco.org.uk/artconnects where you can also see films from previous events and download the event brochure.

For another classic film, click the image above. 2019: 'How high will you fly?'

Thank him (and you)

Thanks to Seth Godin for the inspiration.

We'd have asked him for permission to reference his work but he said he'd had enough emails off me and Sir Elton John 'liked' one of our tweets so we took Mark Earls' advice, to #CopyCopyCopy

If you read this far (And didn't just hit the 'end' key), thank you.

Our kids need #carerslikeyou

For more info on our #ARTCONNECTS19 Festival click here

To understand why art connects and why it's so important as we leave the industrial economy, click below.