Create Sheffield 2024 Highlights

Create Sheffield 2024 Highlights

As the year draws to a close we wanted to take a moment to pause and reflect on the past 12 months, share a few highlights and take a glance forward into 2025.

Here are a few things that we are proud of.

Art, Creativity, Culture - Sheffield’s Children and Young People Speak Out

Back in February, we held an event that saw people from across Sheffield gather to hear from a range of speakers about the importance of arts and culture to young people, and how we can all work together to make opportunities more equitable. The energy in the room was palpable and has powered us through the rest of 2024!

Know your Place Teacher Training 

We teamed up with Historic England, Sheffield Museums, Sheffield Manor Lodge, the National Emergency Services Museum and Wessex Archaeology to put on a series of training days for primary school teachers from around 20 different schools. The teachers were able to visit different heritage sites across the city, including an exclusive tour of the ongoing excavations at Castlegate, to find out who, what and where is important to their pupils. 

As part of the training the schools also received packs of aerial photos and maps both of the city centre and of the locality of their schools. The training has now finished but the teachers are busy putting what they learnt into practice back in the classroom. 

One teacher has already used some of the resources and told us:

‘It was one of those lessons you actually wanted to be observed on. The maps were a genius tool. The conversations the children had made this one of the most enriching teaching experiences this year. The children took the conversations, ran with them and explored themselves.’

Watch this space for more information about a forthcoming exhibition of the children’s work. 

Green Gardens

Our Green Gardens project delved into the realities of life in care through the eyes of young people, workers, families, and friends living in Sheffield. The project was initiated in response to the "Art, Creativity, Culture – Sheffield's Children and Young People Speak Out" report to amplify the voices of this seldom-heard group.

Working in partnership with the Virtual School, Create Sheffield provided opportunities for care-experienced youth to engage in various artistic pursuits - from painting and singing to drawing and DJing, culminating in an exhibition at Millennium Gallery. If you are interested in hearing more from care-experienced young people then be sure to check out this Community Parenting film.

Sheffield Creative Industries Showcase

November saw us work with partners to organise events for Discover Creative Careers Week 2024 including the inaugural Sheffield Creative Industries Showcase. Over 100 young people and 35 creative professionals braved the icy conditions to meet and talk about different jobs, different pathways and different creative options. 

The young people told us:

‘Absolutely lovely event, loved meeting all these new people and felt innovated and inspired by their stories’

‘Brilliant atmosphere’

And a teacher commented that: 

‘To be honest, I actually came back from the event and told the Head of Art it was one of the best events I'd ever taken students out of school for!! I'm not even sure I've got any suggestions as to how the event could have run any better.’

And looking forward 

Sheffield Culture Strategy 2035

2024 has been a big year for everyone involved in culture in Sheffield as they have worked together to develop the Sheffield Culture Strategy 2035. Create Sheffield advocated strongly for children and young people to ensure that are threaded through the strategy and that their voices are represented. Early next year we will be working with the Sheffield City Council Culture Team to help turn the strategy from words into actions that will continue to build on the energy and enthusiasm from the Art, Creativity, Culture - Sheffield’s Children and Young People Speak Out event.

That’s all from us this year but we can’t wait to see what 2025 brings. Until then we will be mainly found snoozing under a Christmas tree snacking on chocolates. 

Hope you all have a well-deserved rest over the next few weeks and see you back here bright-eyed and bushy tailed in January! 

Laura & Katie