During the financial year, Digital Sparks Club CIC provided creative photography, digital art and animation activities for children and young people, with a focus on making creative experiences, specialist equipment and new skills accessible. One of our main projects was delivered with a local school in partnership with English Heritage at Belsay Hall, Castle and Gardens. Children visited Belsay and used photography to explore and document the site. They printed their photographs back at school, using them to create their own mixed-media collages. The project helped children engage with local heritage in a creative way while developing photography and art skills. The work is due to be exhibited, giving the children a sense of ownership and pride in what they had produced. Digital Sparks Club CIC also delivered paid light-painting workshops in schools for GCSE Photography students. These sessions introduced students to specialist light-painting techniques and equipment, helping them learn new practical photography skills, experiment creatively and develop work that could contribute to and improve their GCSE Photography coursework. We also delivered four free workshops at Gosforth Civic Theatre. These included light-painting photography and animation workshops. Digital Sparks Club CIC paid for the venue hire so that the sessions could be offered free of charge. The free workshops gave children and young people the opportunity to experiment with cameras, lighting, animation and specialist creative equipment that they may not otherwise have had access to. The sessions encouraged creativity, experimentation, confidence and the development of new digital and artistic skills, while ensuring that cost was not a barrier to taking part. Through these activities, Digital Sparks Club CIC has provided accessible opportunities for children and young people to engage with photography, animation, digital creativity, art and local heritage, both within schools and in the wider community.

Digital Sparks Club CIC’s stakeholders include the children and young people who take part in our activities, teachers and schools that we work with, and the organisations and venues involved in delivering our projects. We consulted with GCSE Photography teachers about the needs of their students and how our light-painting workshops could support their coursework and help them develop new practical and creative photography skills. For the Belsay project, we worked closely with teachers at the school to ensure that the activities were appropriate for the children and supported their learning. We also spoke directly with the children throughout the project, listened to their ideas and encouraged them to develop their own creative responses. We also collected feedback through questionnaires about participants’ experiences of our activities. The feedback received was positive and helped us understand what participants enjoyed and valued about the workshops. Alongside the questionnaires, we spoke informally with children and young people during the workshops and observed which activities they engaged with most. This feedback and consultation will help us develop future workshops and continue to provide accessible, enjoyable and relevant creative opportunities for children and young people.

No remuneration was received

No transfer of assets other than for full consideration