This is probably the last post regarding this job, and the installation went very well indeed considering the weather conditions.
Everyone concerned was very pleased with the outcome and pats on the back all round…blah blah you know.
There is one final thing I would like to say though:
If your working in a school, get the head teacher on board, especially if your contact at the school is under preasure and unable to deliver what is rerquired.
The point of this project fell at the last fence. The cavalry did not arrive at the eleventh hour. Do you remember I told you earlier that the school had back dated clearners wages to pay and no covering staff were employed to cover sickness and absence. Well that is still reverberating around the school with teachers streatched beyond capacity. As a result no teachers were able to bring the children to the site to stick the mosaic fish they had made a month or so earlier into the pathways on site.
Badly needed regeneration is arriving in Burslem now, ownership, social inclusion and socialy engaged practice is being carried out by artists designers etc. But I feel sad that my project did not show the process to completion, the exercises in the classroom remain in the classroom for the pupils. I wanted them to see how the stuff they generated was applied to the upgrading of their community.
I remember maths at school, it was so pointless to me, if I had been shown its application in the real world I may not have struggled so much. This point is crucial to many kids, especially like the ones living in this neighbourhood.
I feel my project was highjacked in a point proving show. Both by the regenerators and the people trying to implement the regeneration without enough resources.
Maybe I am making a big deal of a small thing and turning into a synical grumpy old man. It was a very successfull project and I shoul'nt spend twenty minutes whinging on!
