Edinburgh school joins forces with Edinburgh International Festival

Edinburgh City Council has teamed up with the Edinburgh International Festival to create a unique new arts programme for pupils at Castlebrae Community High.

The project, which launched last week, will see artists come into the school to work in a range of different medium. Through arts education, the aim is to increase opportunities, inspire creativity and improve attainment levels for pupils through the arts across the curriculum. Castlebrae is one of the country’s most under-performing schools, and was almost closed down last year.

The Festival programme, a three-way partnership between Edinburgh City Council, the school and the Edinburgh International Festival, will give pupils the chance to work with artists and performers, produce their own work and attend events at the Festival over the next three years.

It will include access to a programme of workshops at The Hub, the Festival’s headquarters, as well as a film and music programme called From Castlebrae with Love, the Festival’s Art of Listening project, which is currently being researched and documented by Harvard University, and Soul Boxes, which explores and supports significant moments in pupils’ lives through their own visual arts projects.

Councillor Cathy Fullerton, Vice Convener of Education at the City of Edinburgh Council, said: “I’m delighted that the EIF have linked up with Castlebrae Community High School for this unique project. The three-year residency really will give the pupils a chance to be creative and inspire them. It’s not often a school gets such a fantastic opportunity to tap into such international artistic talent and I’m sure it will spark the pupils into expressing themselves in a way they had never thought possible.”

The Edinburgh International Festival 2015 is supported by the City of Edinburgh Council and Creative Scotland. It will run between 7-31 August 2015. You can find out more about the festival and the programme by visiting the Festival website.

To share the latest goings on from your school, email resource@dcpublishing.co.uk