Big Wide Talk is currently working on an interactive, searchable tool which will make our vast database of evidence readily accessible, both in extracts that support our hypotheses, and in full collections of evidence from our work over the past 8 years. We are hoping to have this operational soon. In the meantime, click on the links below to view examples of recent work and to read some of our proposals.
Proposals
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In June 2009, Big Wide Talk's theatre of learning 'The Cloth Place' in Cambridge allowed children to direct their own learning. This short film illustrates the reflections of participating adults and children on their experiences in the Cloth Place. Please click here to watch. |
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The Colourbox Research Stories |
"Culture is a frontline service"- Avonmouth group agree with Cultural Commissar
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Addressing the National Children's and Adult Services conference in Liverpool, Professor Phil Redmond (Deputy Chair and Creative director, Liverpool Culture Company) argued ‘Culture is a frontline service.’ He saw cultural development as a means of enabling people to talk together and draw confidence from each other. This, he said, was fundamental to renewal. Big Wide Talk agrees. Our evidence shows that, given the chance to have deliberative dialogue over time, people who live in the same place begin to unpack the role of culture in their lives and their children’s futures. Wikipedia defines culture as "all the ways of life including arts, beliefs and institutions of a population that are passed down from generation to generation." A group of parents and practitioners in Avonmouth have worked with us unpacking their understanding of culture. Over a period stretching from July 2000, they have worked with us exploring their shared experience of: family, household, children’s creativity and learning, word of mouth networks, engagement, bringing up children, living in the same geographical context, living in the same economic context, schools, community centres, public services, rights and responsibilities. What follows is a reprise of their work with us and the conclusions they have reached: |
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Membership Seminar, Westminster 2008. Since 2001 BWT has worked to develop and improve local services for children. There is a national core of parents that wish to continue to work with BWT to share the work more widely. Many working hypotheses about service improvement have emerged. This seminar is part of a drive to mainstream the work and allow parents and practitioners to debate these working hypotheses with influential people in government. Ed Miliband took part in this debate. Our proposals: 1. That the everyday problems that parents and practitioners face are always complex and require highly tailored, individual solutions which most households sort for themselves with and without help from the government. 2. That the decisions parents make, for example to have children, when and how many, have unique antecedents and drivers which must be acknowledged and respected if households become stressed. 3. That the problems facing parents are often mismatched by service providers because the services do not have enough expertise nor time to hear what people have to say nor to understand the complexity of skills needed to bring up children. 4. Working in partnership at the very local level using expertise and tools such as those demonstrated by Big Wide Talk, parents themselves can deliver sustainable and effective first level family support when and where it is needed. Read more about the proposals that emerged. |
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The SS Growing up in Morecambe: Click here to view the story. Between February and April 2008, Big Wide Talk ran a project in Morecambe in partnership with Lancaster City Council called “Growing Up in Morecambe”. This consisted of a series of workshops where participating children, parents and teachers could work together to build lanterns in the shape of shells, to help build a boat, and to talk about their experiences of growing up in Morecambe by writing stories (adults) or by making a My Box Of Me (children). At the end of the project, all families who participated were invited to parade their lanterns along the promenade as the boat was launched in Morecambe Bay. 200 adults and 500 children attended at least one of the project’s activities. At the end of the project, we held a professional development day for the practitioners we had worked with, part of which we dedicated to a discussion of the services in Morecambe, what they felt was needed, and how their involvement in Growing Up In Morecambe had impacted on them. |
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Enabling Achievement: Parents Make it Happen Parents in Avonmouth have worked with Big Wide Talk since 2001. They have taken part in numerous exhibitions, summer meetings and other challenges. They have derived huge enjoyment and a sense of shared achievement from this work. By the early part of 2007, a group of parents were keen to work with us to help produce an exhibition in Bristol. In September 2007 Big Wide Talk and Avonmouth parents put on 'Looking Out Looking In'. The exhibition ran for two weeks. |
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Our Outstanding Children: Click here to view the indexed PDF Cornwall County Council Family Services agreed to work with Big Wide Talk using an exhibition, Our New School, to enable children, parents, practitioners and politicians across the county to do exciting things together and to talk about the experience in the follow-up work. The exhibition was filmed and the analysis of the film and other documentation collected during the follow-up is presented here, along with an interpretation of the key messages in the myriad conversations it engendered. Click below for a sample of the stories: |
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Going Up Going Down Parents in Hob Moor in York have been working with Big Wide Talk since 2002 and in 2007 a small group of them formed an asset club to be able to work with Big Wide Talk to deliver an exhibition to other children and families in the area where they lived. The Hob Moor asset club were involved in the planning, promotion, set up and running of the exhibtion. 943 children and 406 adults from 22 settings took part in the two-week long exhibition, Going Up Going Down. |
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We're Robbers Forever: In February 2007, Big Wide Talk turned the hall, the servery and the music room of Countess Wear Primary school into an exciting exhibition space to demonstrate every child's creativity and learning. The photo story which follows documents the particular experience of Class 4/5. Our working hypothesis: When you start with an open-ended, self-directed experience for children, it is always possible to map their experience against national or local targets. It can also be more rigorously measured than target-driven learning. "Our subsequent reflection with Big Wide Talk brought out so much about this powerful experience. We worked to edit footage with Big Wide Talk and the children easily began to identify different perspectives whilst retaining clear boundaries which delineated their responsibilities to each other. We related the experience to one of the reading targets: 'understanding readers' viewpoint from what is written and what is implied.'" - Margaret Watson, class teacher. |
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How do we invest in the future? This is the story of a conversation with local group participants about the circumstances of child-rearing in their areas and the ways their capacity to bring up children might or might not be enhanced by the development of social enterprise. The proposals were made as a result of analysing 78 My Maps of Me (a tool which guides participants to undertake self-analysis in relation to family and employment). To order a hard copy of this publication (£12.00) please contact us. |
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Staying Safe: the cross-Government strategy on improving children and young people's safety. Big Wide Talk’s method gives children the space and time they need for self-directed learning, generally as part of Big Wide Talk theatres of learning and exhibitions. This space and time is made possible in part by participating adults accepting collective responsibility for all the children. Big Wide Talk asks participating adults to examine what happens at theatres of learning and exhibitions and to document this research. What happens if we give children freedom? Does chaos break out? How do we accommodate difference? |
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Creating the Picture, Primary National Strategy document, June 2007. Our method means agreeing starting points and next steps in partnerships, doing exciting things with children, being with and observing children, co-operating, documenting, and instigating change; it requires parents and practitioners to think and talk together about what children actually do and say. The understandings arrived at create locally valid tools, such as research stories, which can be used both to assess the fitness for purpose of existing services, and to commission new services. |
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HM Treasury/DfES Review of Services for Children and Young People Parents and practitioners meet together in place-specific groups, doing exciting things with children either in local authority-specific theatres of learning/exhibitions or in national gatherings. Evidence of children fully engaged in all manner of activity is discussed and stories are co-authored. Parents and practitioners contribute their respective expertise in non-judgemental but informed ways. The outputs connect with the full range of government policy and practice, locally and nationally. |
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The Lyons Inquiry unpacked the most pressing issues confronting local government, its relationship to central government and the desire for a sustainable and fair system of central and local government for the 21st century, to help achieve a more prosperous, cohesive and engaged society and better outcomes from public services. BWT's submission presents a new model for service delivery that engages even the poorest people, reinvigorating collective responsibility and providing a new kind of local democratic commissioning hub that addresses the twin concerns of ‘post code lottery’ misconceptions and the real demand for highly tailored, locally specific services. |
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Hold the rock not the rope is the story of how Big Wide Talk groups across the country explored climbing as a means of gaining a closer understanding of the communication between adults and children. 251 adults and 254 children (164 under 5) took part in six climbing expeditions (five on rocks and one on the Big Wide Talk climbing wall). Read the proposals that emerged as a result of this exploration. To order a hard copy of this publication (£15.00), which includes an accompanying DVD with film footage, please contact us. |
