30 March 2023 | Community news
The goal was to bring all the schools together in the Trust and spread the message that everyone is part of something bigger and to increase student aspirations. Sporting events were planned, a reading programme that runs across the primaries and secondaries, a travelling art exhibition with submissions from all schools and a new song was written for the Trust entitled ‘Make our Future Bright’- the video for which can be viewed on our website and involved almost all of the schools within the Trust. Schools also set up their own community events and encouraged parents, carers and the wider community to join in the festival in some way.
Throughout the Festival of Hope, we have provided opportunities across the Trust, for students and staff to meet, engage, learn and compete with their Trust peers.
As Nelson Mandela noted in 2006, sport and physical activity talk to young people in a way much cannot. The Festival of Hope was the prime opportunity to share and showcase the most amazing skills and facilities that schools in our Trust possess and everyone was encouraged to get involved. Our events have been an opportunity to raise student aspirations and evidence that pupils are part of so much more than just a school and are in fact part of a huge family of schools within our Trust. Students from many of our primaries and secondaries participated in an Indoor Athletics tournament at Holsworthy College at the start of the festival and a Football tournament at Okehampton College at the end. Students performed excellently and it was a great opportunity to all come together!
A cross phase art exhibition (from primary right up to secondary) was arranged which started its tour at Tavistock College and travelled onwards over the month to our other two secondaries. We are so proud to see all the effort our schools have put into this collaborative installation. A digital art gallery of all the contributions can be viewed on our youtube channel.
We also arranged Live Art session, led by an artist at three sites with a range of primary pupils attending, who also had the opportunity to create a ‘DMAT Shoe’ and tour the exhibition. Many members of staff from the secondary schools commented on the students’ polite and well behaved manner and how it was a pleasure to host these events for them! Thank you to Tania Skeaping, Chair of the Trust and Sophia Clist Governor at Okehampton College, who judged the secondary contributions and determined who would be named overall Exhibition Artist of the Year 2023.
Kate Wyatt, Head of Art at Tavistock College said “It was a delight to see the wealth of talent across the schools, students really embraced the topics and created marvelous outcomes. I look forward to seeing some fantastic artists joining our Secondary schools in the future and observing the work of the secondary students who will no doubt excel at GCSE and beyond.”
During our Festival of Hope month this year, each of our schools learned a song called “Make our future bright.” A music video was produced to showcase the participation of all our schools in the festivities. Our secondary students added instrumental accompaniment to the backing track, while some of our primary students created their own dance routines, all of which can be seen in the video. We invite you to watch this wonderful collaboration, which inspires hope and spreads joy. Click here to view it.
Reading is such an important skill and imperative to positive outcomes for students and is a key focus for the Trust. Y7 students from Okehampton College took part in several ‘Book Club’ sessions at Okehampton, North Tawton and South Tawton primary schools and Holsworthy College visited Bridgerule and Black Torrington primary schools during the festival, where they used reciprocal reading strategies to lead an academic discussions on Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief with Y6 students. These sessions also played another important part of the transition journey for those pupils who will be moving from the primary to secondary phase in September.
Dartmoor Multi Academy Trust Leader and CEO, Dan Morrow said:
“The Festival of Hope has involved a significant range of activities for our young people raging from Year R up to Year 13, centred on art, music, sport and the wider curriculum that brings so much to the vibrancy and breadth of school experience. As the shadow of the last few years still looms heavily upon us all, centring this on hope and the belief in human potential and compassion, has been so important to the sense of identity and belonging crucial to the development of character. It has been a real privilege to see what our young people have produced and the care and dedication that they and the staff who steward them, have invested into this wonderful event.
We end this term in hope- its celebration and its revealing. Whilst here will always be uncertainty, we weather any storm through our collective commitment and will to putting children at the heart of all we do.”