Hello everyone, and a Happy New Year from the Cheltenham Education Partnership! Before we step in to an exciting new term of events and opportunities, I would like to take you on a look back at the final half term of 2024.
The most exciting development for CEP has been our successful application to become an independent charitable organisation. The University of Gloucestershire have been wonderful hosts for us over the last 5 years, however, to meet our plans and objectives going forward we needed to evolve as an organisation. With this transition, we aim to be able to offer even greater value to our member schools, our local partners and most importantly to the young people in the Cheltenham area. There will be many more developments over the coming months as we embark on this journey and we will be sure to keep you all updated!
The events programme resumed in November and we kicked off with a bang. The Interclimate group brough their model COP Conference to Cheltenham in partnership with Cheltenham Borough Council and CEP. We were able to bring a phenomenal 11 CEP schools to the event and those in attendance agreed that it was a unique and highly beneficial experience. Our schools represented the interests of their chosen countries masterfully and everyone in attendance was able to increase their knowledge on the global climate crisis.
The Great Debate has continued into a new format, where 8 schools are invited to compete over 2 days. We were able to complete 3 of 4 of these new debates while we fine tune the format. The students worked incredibly hard to tackle issues around government intervention in public lives. We have one make up session and two more debates left to go this year! Massive thanks to Xara Davies at Cheltenham Ladies and to Meg Brown and Louise Griffiths at Bournside for all of the help getting this format set for the year.
Both of our Young Creative Journeys for 24/25 had their second workshop in this term. The second Young Poets workshop saw 7 schools come together to sharpen their writing. Ably facilitated as always by Emma Taylor and Cal Wensley, our poets produced some of their best work yet. Huge thank you to Dean Close for hosting.
Young Designers also entered its second phase, with students from 8 schools taking their designs for a wearable art piece and starting to bring them to life. The sewing machines and dummies were out as the designers practiced their needlework and experiments with composition. Our programme facilitator Katie Taylor and her colleague Katie Coughlan once again led a phenomenal session and the students were buzzing with excitement throughout. A huge thanks to Cheltenham Ladies College for the use of their facilities and equipment!
Last but far from least, we saw the beginning of the 2025 Cineyouth programme in partnership with the Cheltenham International Film Festival. We were privileged to welcome Hollywood movie professional and All Saints alumnus Jake Parker to come and talk us through his extensive experience in the film industry. Jake gave us a fascinating view on a wide range of roles in the industry and entertained students with tales of being on set with some of Hollywood’s biggest names. Jake then guided the students through a film making exercise where they were asked to produce a 1-minute Christmas advert on their phones – the results were amazing for such a short time! We had more than 60 students from 3 schools at this one, a huge thank you to Jake and to Kerri Edgar at All Saints for putting on an amazing event.
Thats it for our winter term round up! Please keep an eye on the events programme to see what we have coming up in January, there are plenty more amazing opportunities for the students of Cheltenham just around the corner…