Fringe Festival Schools Program

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Mission

The world’s largest performing arts festival runs a Schools Poster Competition, involving 100,000 students artists across Scotland since it’s launch in 1980.

A new teaching curriculum and changes to the arts education landscape necessitated a project revamp to increase dwindling participation numbers and attract wider attention and funding.

 

 

Project

This development project took place over several months.

I first met with the Fringe team to understand the project as it stood to better explore opportunities for growth and change and understand the organization’s artistic priorities and financial constraints.

edinburgh-fringe-logo

This led to a series of recommendations which kept the competition in tact, but reworked how it was presented to schools and better integrated arts learning opportunities. This included:

  • streamlining information for increased impact
  • creating tailored lesson plans and classroom content which
    • draw clear links between projects and the new curriculum outcomes
    • create opportunities for critical thinking and class discussion across subjects
    • emphasize cross-curricular potential to appeal outside of art lessons
    • tailor content by age group for better relevance
  • recommendations for updating the appeal of the prizes and culminating event
  • redesigning the materials to streamline distribution, save costs and provide an easier, smoother way for schools to get involved
  • developing the website to make materials and information more readily accessible

 

fringe poster competition

 

 

 

Results

The redesigned school resources and curriculum guides were made widely available to coincide with the annual competition launch.

 

Fringe poster competition

 

Before this evaluation and update, 1,200 students from 69 schools designed entries. After implementation, 3,900 students participated the first year and, after minor updates, more than 5,600 students participated from 198 schools in the second year.

The Competition has since attracted corporate sponsorship from Virgin Money and is still going strong, including a public exhibition of the winners each summer in the Museum of Childhood.

 

 

 

Partners

Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society (the Edinburgh Fringe)