Early planning

• Involve all partners in the planning right from the start.

• Plan ahead, as early as possible. Allow plenty of time for preparation work and for booking writers and sessions.

• Librarians and writers should liaise with museum, archive and gallery educators to agree themes that will inspire and excite young people.

Awareness day

Set up an awareness day right at the start of your planning and invite people from all the organisations taking part in the project.
Use this day to:

• Give everyone a clear understanding of the aims and ideas of Young Cultural Creators – and how it works

• Show how YCC can benefit all partner organisations – and discuss what each partner is bringing to the project

• Ensure that managers in each organisation are committed to the project and can support and motivate staff involved in making YCC happen.

Local Planning

It is best if local staff involved in the project get together regularly to plan their YCC programme – this means library staff, teachers and the museum, gallery or archive educator.

• Include the writer in all planning and if possible invite him/her to join in an early planning meeting. It is useful for authors to have a full understanding of who is included in the partnership, and why. A planning visit to the museum, gallery or archive is essential.

• Set up good communications. One system that works well is an email network where everyone in the project is copied into every message. That way you will all know exactly what is happening, and can discuss all ideas and any problems together.

• Agree the outcomes which each organisation wants to see happening as a result of the project. This will provide the basis for planning and evaluating all activities. (See ‘Monitoring and evaluation’)

• Identify how the project and chosen theme links into the curriculum and supports the school’s classroom work

• Be realistic about the resources. Later problems can be avoided with a little creative thinking at the planning stage. For example, if there is limited space in an archive or museum, think about working with small groups – or transferring the featured resources to library or classroom. Equally, a large space might present problems with unmanageable acoustics. Think about moving to a more intimate space for the discussion part of a workshop.

• Think about the staff that will be needed when arranging activities and make sure that all staff involvement is endorsed by their managers.

Planning the budget

When planning the budget you need to think about:
• books, buying in extra copies of the chosen titles
• photocopying and reproduction of material for the information packs
• learning materials from the gallery, museum or archive
• transport for the young people
• coordinators’ and administrators’ time (partners may provide this from mainstream staffing but you might have to find funding for extra staff or consultancy time)
• authors’ fees travel and expenses. It is important to budget to pay the standard fee. Authors add a special ingredient to Young Cultural Creators, and publishers may well be willing to support some of your events – particularly if they help to promote a new author or title.

Publishers may well be willing to support some of your events, especially if it is an opportunity to promote a new author or title.

Thinking ahead

Book authors, choose pictures and artefacts and plan themes as far ahead as possible. Allow time for:
• authors to be matched to pictures/artefacts or themes and to make their own preparations
• gathering of information and resources on the pictures and artefacts
• getting copies of the authors’ books
• giving the young people and teachers time to start reading the books and find out something about the gallery or museum.

It is important to take into account other demands on school time. For example if you are working with Year 6 pupils they will be preparing for SATs tests in the summer term, so this is not a good time to run a project.

It can be better to spend the autumn term arranging bookings, planning and preparation, use the spring term to hold workshops and activities, and the summer term to develop on-going themes

Working with authors

Authors may be linked into your project in a variety of ways:
• in one model a particular collection or theme is chosen to be promoted. In this case approach authors whose work complements the theme.
• authors might be chosen before the theme is agreed. They will need to visit the gallery or museum to decide how to connect with the collection.
• another model involves an ‘author-in residence’ role. This works particularly well if your author lives locally.

Information pack

An information pack is useful for those working on the project. It also helps teachers and children to develop the ideas inspired by the pictures, artefacts and books afterwards.

The pack can be developed jointly or produced by one of the partner organisations. It should include:

• suggestions for activities and project work
• information about the authors and their work
• features on the chosen titles – including a résumé of plot, characters and major themes
• information about the chosen pictures and artefacts
• information about the creators and histories of the pictures and artefacts.