Littlehampton Sounds: Raising the profile of young people’s music making
Rhythmix has recently completed delivery on a West Sussex Music Trust project in Littlehampton funded by Youth Music. Here we give an overview of the project, the challenges, successes and the legacy left behind.
Littlehampton (a borough within Arun District in West Sussex) is an area of high deprivation with some of the most deprived wards in the district and county. West Sussex Music Trust (WSMT) in 2013 commissioned an ‘Insight Report’ seeking to highlight hot and cold spots of musical activities and deprivation and identified Littlehampton as an area of need.There was evidence of good practice within schools but not outside of school or in community or youth settings. There was no evidence of activity targeted at children and young people in Challenging Circumstances. Evidence suggested a need for targeted provision for Children in Challenging Circumstances, opportunities for Young People to celebrate their music making (regardless of background) and a need to widen the offer to include more contemporary instruments and music technology.
In December 2014 WSMT worked with Rhythmix for a Fund A to address some of the issues identified and Littlehampton Sounds project was born. The project sought to raise the profile of music making in Littlehampton, especially young people’s music making, and reflect the social issues faced by young people in Littlehampton.
We launched the project with a programme of tastes session in Autumn 2015 and delivered weekly workshops in settings in the borough from Spring 2016 onwards. The young people made recordings of their music and worked towards a final celebration event in Littlehampton. As well as providing engaging, creative music sessions, there was a focus on educational outcomes and learning, and we provided opportunities for Arts Award with 20 being achieved within the project. The project culminated in a showcase event on 1st April 2017.
‘’Brilliant project, went really really well. Students engaged to a high level right from the start and completed a lot of work to a high level. Most students wrote lyrics talking about their issues at school and what led them to be expelled, generally talking about the positive direction they want to pursue in future. They also rapped and recorded these over beats with other students working on music tech and production.’’ Max Wheeler, Tutor at Littlehampton Littlehampton Alternative Provision College and Littlehampton Academy
Partnership Challenges and Successes
The main challenges on the project was establishing some of the partnerships. Starting a new project in an area that hasn’t had a specific music project before is always a challenge. Relationships need to be built and partnership trust earned.
Communications with Littlehampton Academy took a long time initially. This was partly due to a change of Head of Music and partly again due to cuts in staff and strains on resources. Once the new Head of Music started the project blossomed and they were key to the success of the programme. There’s a clear legacy being left at the Academy with the offer they plan for the future.
Due to the success of the partnership with Littlehampton Academy we were also able to deliver sessions within the Scott Center which is Special Support facility attached to The Academy. It is funded by the Local Authority for students of mainstream ability who have assessed social and communication needs (Autistic Spectrum Condition/ semantic pragmatic disorder). The facility offers a supportive environment providing therapeutic interventions designed to address the individual needs of students. The Centre is open before and after school. Whilst not a partner in the original bid they proved to be an essential part of the programme.
Littlehampton Alternative Provision College (APC) is located with The Flintstone Centre. It is a Pupil Referral Unit that provides full time-equivalent places for Secondary-aged children and young people from West Sussex who have been permanently excluded, those at risk of exclusion, those out of school for medical reasons and those too sick to attend school. This part of the partnership with The Flintstone Center went extremely well, however, we had intended to deliver within the Youth Club as well, however engaging with the Youth Service was challenging.
The Youth Service had recently taken over the running of local homeless services which is a statutory requirement for their service, meaning that less time was being spent in actual youth work in The Flintstone Youth Centre. Whilst they were keen to engage, staff shortages, funding cuts and distractions to their service meant that meetings were difficult to schedule. Other youth agencies have assisted in providing access to sessions but those Young People who have shown a keen interest in engaging long-term would have needed to be supported in traveling to The Flintstone Youth Centre.
The Flintstone Youth Centre was due to be one the main partners in the project but their internal issues meant that we had to stop running sessions here. Tasters were delivered in four youth clubs: Southfields Youth Club, Keystone Centre Youth Club, Arun Community Church and Flintstone Youth Centre, but none of these sessions had the attendance number needed or expectations.
Following conversations with Youth Music it was agreed to focus on delivering sessions at The Littlehampton Academy, the Scott Center and Littlehampton APC where sessions were well received. Working in a cold spot means you have to adapt to the local environment as it evolves and the project certainly showed how important individual gatekeepers are to the success and support of a programme. The project also reflected issues we see across the region with reduced school and youth service budgets.
Showcase Event
The Littlehampton Sounds Event on 1st April was a celebration of the work that had been created by young people and of their talents. 12 Young people form the project performed at the event to an audience of 150. An additional 4 from Sussex Steel also performed. 3 young people who attended the event did not perform but had their music played. The audience included peers, friends, families and supporters. The young people were very supportive of each other as artists with two young people also working as technicians. They were involved in the whole set up of the event, soundchecks and final rehearsals.
The event also was headlined by UK Grime Artist Eyez. Young people surprised that a Grime Artist like Eyez would come to perform in Littlehampton and that they would be sharing a stage with him.
‘’The gig at the Windmill was a fantastic success. We had several bands and solo artists performing and playback of several others. We also had young people helping with stage management and behind the scenes. It was the first gig for most of our performers so a fantastic experience for them, and some of the young people who didn’t get it together to perform promised that they would for the next one. The end was a great gig from Eyez who as well as being a very nice bloke, pitched his set really well at the age group (i.e. being very careful with language etc) whilst keeping it very cool!’’ - Craig Warnock, Tutor
We created a Storify from photos, video and tweets at the event, avaliable here: https://storify.com/RhythmixMusic/littlehampton-sounds-58e271576a0ef4936ce15d04
What next?
Littlehampton Academy is now planning to offer Music Technology GCSE from September and will continue with a Friday evening “Rock School” format, delivered in-house after the project has finished. They are in also currently using West Sussex Music Trust’s Tuition services and are discussions regarding investing in the “Time 4 Music” programme offered by WSMT as an ongoing method of delivering extracurricular lessons.
For Rhythmix it’s time to reflect on the programme and what was achieved within a term of tasters and 3 terms of delivery - which for us is a relatively short programme for us. We will be posting some case studies from the project soon as it’s really the individual journeys that tell the whole story of what was a brilliant programme of work.