Past Projects
"Karl, thank you for all you've done for us. We've learned so much."
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Youth Orchestra members
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"i was about to drop out, but you gave me time at the piano. thank you for helping me get back into it."
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Young Composer on summer course
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Wiltshire Music
Centre
Post | Head of Creative Learning
2016-19
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For most of three years I headed up a fantastic team at Wiltshire Music Centre, looking after dozens of creative projects all woven into the fabric of this amazing concert venue in Bradford-on-Avon.
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Two Youth Orchestras - 5 annual concerts and a tour to the South of France
My Science Fair - bringing music and science together
Celebrating Age - working with older people across the county
Zone Club - a monthly music making with learning disabled young adults (and I'm still the Strategic Lead for this work)
Ghanaian drummers, string quartets, schools workshops, the OAE (for a touch of the Baroque!), cake concerts, online music lessons, WMC Chorus, summer fun...
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The list goes on, the list goes on...
An amazing place where I was proud to be at the helm of all things Creative Learning.
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or
"Karl encourages the children to explore their own ideas and has a great rapport with them. We have seen them grow in confidence, both in their writing and in their abilities to share their work."
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Victoria Reyes, Headteacher, Ubley
Ubley Primary
Project | Writer in Residence
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My work as Writer in Residence at Ubley Primary has focussed on a small cohort of young writers who needed added interventions. Week by week we have used a wide variety of methods to create a vast array of different written pieces.
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At times we have created bite size pieces of impromptu poetry. Other times we have created the building blocks for a sustained piece of narrative writing.​
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With every session I have insisted that they do not just settle for the first idea that pops up. They might return to that later (the story of Pigs Will Evolve being a case in point!) but I will ensure that they unearth further layers of language and ideas.
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Together we have written poems and short stories, we have designed characters and described new and exciting lands. We even wrote on bananas! The reports from the teachers show that the effect of these sessions can be seen in their other class work and confidence levels too.
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"Normally at this time we do literacy, but this writing with you was fun. Not like real work."
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Young writer, in post-workshop discussion
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"He never normally tells me about what he does at school, but after your classes he comes home and won't stop talking about what he was writing."
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Parent of another young writer, in playground discussion
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Other Schools
Project | Creative Writing Facilitator​
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Over recent years I have delivered workshops in various other schools, both Primary and Secondary.
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To give a few brief examples, with Years 3 and 4 I recently gave a workshop based on Shakespeare and his propensity for making up words, in celebration of his 400th birthday. At the same school in Somerset I treated Reception to story sharing complete with percussion for them to join in.
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At St John's in Midsomer Norton I helped create fables with Yr5, which involved some drama for writing techniques to help develop animal characters.
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In London, when I worked for Theatre Peckham, I was responsible for working with local prmary schools to set up projects and recruit workshop leaders often developing Speaking and Listening skills.
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During my time on the Write Team project in Bath I worked in several schools across BaNES. At Wellsway in Keynsham my Yr8 and 9 group were very keen on writing outdoors, and my primaries, particularly Newbridge in Bath, loved writing and sharing their poems. Back in 2011, I was the lead writer on a drama/writing project with 7 schools from BaNES, which culminated in performances at the egg theatre in Bath.
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The images show some Memory Poems I created with young people at a community event.
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"The characters Karl wrote were great. I was learning lines with my girlfriend and she said it sounded just like me and my mates."
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Ashton, actor
OCR
Project | Short Film Writer
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In 2014 I was invited to be part of a project at OCR to create an online learning platform for maths and English, aimed at 16 - 24 year olds who, for various reasons, had not succeeded in education. My role was to write, direct and film short soap-opera style drama pieces, which then formed the backbone for the blended-learning courses.
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I was able to draw on a range of experiences from my youth work background. Most critical was that the pieces must engage young people and encourage them to pursue the learning exercises which accompanied each episode. Working with a Cambridge based crew and sessional actors, as well as students from Anglia Ruskin Uni, we created 5 short films.
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The success of this project for me lay in the feedback I received from actors and tutors alike who 'recognised' the target audience in the pieces.
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"I love Karl’s pace of lessons – I need to slow down – it’s then that you get the
quality of teaching and learning."
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Write Team lead teacher
Bath Festivals
Project | Education Projects Manager
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Having moved to the South West I worked for Bath Festivals and was responsible for three main areas of work. All within the Learning and Participation department, these projects allowed me to work with a range of tutors and young people.
By Jove was a music promotion project in which I facilitated young people to arrange their own gigs and events. From small events in Bath to an indoor music festival with three stages and fire-dancers.
Creative Sound Factory was a music improvisation project, bringing young people together to create new work alongside professional musicians.
The Write Team, which has influenced much of my recent work, was a creative writing project targeting invisible pupils in KS2 & KS3. Working with a team of professional writers from different genre, I delivered workshops in schools and monitored progression with the support of lead teachers in each school. It was this work that brought back the thrill of face-to-face work with young people.
You can read more about this project by clicking on the image, which will take you to the full report on the Bath Festivals website.
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Other work
Project | The rest of my time
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Throughout the year I am involved in various other pieces of work.
The Edinburgh Fringe Festival is in my opinion the greatest festival in the world (sorry Bath!) and each year I work for theSpaceUK as Senior Operations Manager. I manage four of our 14 theatres with a turnover of about 100 theatre companies and 40000 members of audience. The most fun August can ever offer!
In summer 2020 we all know there was no EdFringe, so I produced an online theatre festival, for which we won an Off West End Award.
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I am Chair of School Governors for our local primary school. My own children flourished at this school and I enjoy maintaining an active role, even though they are at GCSE and A-level stages now. My current additional responsibilities include Chairing the Business Sub-committee.
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