May
16
Our latest project around community engagement with Coalhouse Fort and Parkland through Thurrock Council funded by Heritage Lottery Fund was identifying how local community groups can use the Fort and parkland for social and educational outcomes. These have so far included face to face meetings, input into an education plan, digital newsletters and database creation.
May
16
Brand Academy uses communication methods rooted within the creative industry that provide a fun and engaging way of learning, that has no pre-requisite for skills to participate. Brand is everywhere; we all project our own brand; the community we are part of has a brand. The products we buy, the job we choose, the opportunities… Continue reading »
May
16
The ‘Rainbow of Needs’ model was developed in a project sponsored by Thurrock Council and run by Agency East. The participants, a group of young people from the Thurrock area, including youth workers, unemployed young people and apprentices, rejected Maslow’s ‘Hierarchy of Needs’ as having no relevance to their lives and decided to devise their own… Continue reading »
Dec
19
For Agency East, an integral part of our business is to find ways to ensure that the community we work in somehow benefits from our success. This is not some sort of pious altruism or po-faced preachiness. Our focus is organisation has been to find ways to help communities overcome the challenges of disadvantage. For… Continue reading »
Aug
16
So we’ve come to the end of the AmbitionUK pilot with Orange Digital. The participants continue to be mentored by their Orange counterparts and we’re currently evaluating lessons learned with a group led by ex-McKinsey partner, Sir Richard Heygate and Orange Digital CEO Dominic Collins. We’re also very proud to include Kawsar Azom a participant… Continue reading »
May
19
We’re really delighted to be launching our first ambitionUK project with Orange Digital this month. It’s a 10 week corporate training opportunity for 12 unemployed 18-24 year olds. They get to spend around 20 days in the Orange Digital HQ, working with their teams, getting mentoring and learning about branding, marketing, leadership and skills. It’s… Continue reading »
Mar
11
While Jamie’s Dream School is showing some of the difficulties facing teachers and young people, it’s just TV. And as such, it’s chasing ratings. While there is something cringingly enthralling about the chastened and emotionally unintelligent Dr Starkey making up with the overweight and truculent Connor after their little spat, it misses the point. This… Continue reading »
Feb
15
The premise is simple, we need to reconsider how we deliver the curriculum: at them or with them. Think back a few years to the time when you were a child. What was it about you then, that made you the person you are today? Are you the person you wanted to become, did you… Continue reading »
Feb
09
Some time in the changing modern world, people in society stopped taking responsibility for each other and that means that most individuals only think of things that will keep things the way we like them. And it’s well documented how capitalism thrives on feeding that desire to have the things we want. Add to that… Continue reading »
Dec
07
This quotation is taken from Charles Dickens’ book Hard Times, a diatribe against utilitarian education that only believed in the forcing of facts into young minds. When I was a boy, I spent hours of my life in an imaginary world. ‘Daydreaming’ my teachers called it, and my youthful creative adventures of the mind were dismissed… Continue reading »