In January 2023 Kala Sangam hosted our school’s takeover week for a second year running.

Working with local primary school’s mostly from the BD3 area of Bradford in which majority of the children have little to no engagement in the arts, we hosted 7 days of arts activity ranging from Bhangra Dance to Break Dancing.

Each day consisted of four workshops, two in the morning and two in the afternoon. We asked schools to partner up, not only to maximise the number of students participating in the school’s takeover week but to allow the students to meet and work alongside new people. The focus of the takeover week was new experiences whether that be an introduction to a new art form or to meet someone new.  

Across the 7 days we had a total of 13 primary schools attend with a total of 870 Key Stage 2 children. 

As part of the school’s takeover, we made sure to collect feedback from the teachers who attended the week here’s what they had to say:

“A super dance class where all abilities were able to take part – nothing was too much trouble for the staff involved. Super facilities lots of choice and colours available for both schools to able to take part together, really good to be able to talk to children from another school“.

“The children all joined in with both activities, plenty of smiles!”

“Knowledgeable staff. Good with children, interesting activities. Drama allowed children to interact with other children. Bhangra helped learn about their own backgrounds.”

“All children were engaged in both activities, had a chance to try something they hadn’t come across before.”

As part of the feedback collected, we asked how likely they were to work with and recommend Kala Sangam to others (out of 10). With 95% of teachers scoring us 8 and above.

As well as hearing from the teachers we also wanted to hear from the children involved with the help of Facilities Assistant Haider Mahboob we created the following video.

Kala Sangam will be hosting our school’s takeover week again for 2024.