Thirteen Students Complete Successful Work Experience Week At ARC

Thirteen students between the ages of 14 and 20 recently attended a full week of work experience at ARC, Stockton Arts Centre, where they spent time working with the programming, marketing, and technical teams and then worked together to create, promote, and deliver their own event in ARC’s main venue, The Point.

The aim of the week was to give young people experience of managing an event from start to finish by working with ARC staff to develop, promote, and deliver an event. Applicants were also able to complete a Bronze Arts Award (Level 1 Award in the Arts).

ARC believe that gaining work experience is a vital necessity for young people in order to find suitable employment after leaving education. The structure of this week offered students a rich learning experience of the variety of roles that exist within an arts organisation.

The students planned and delivered an immersive cinema screening of the classic musical movie, Grease. As well as the film screening, there were choreographed dances, costumes, sing-a-longs, custom-made signs and banners, alongside stalls serving popcorn, hot dogs, and milkshakes for the full 1950s experience.

Activity started on Monday 7 July when the students arrived at ARC and, after an induction, set to work with ARC’s Programme Coordinator Dan Mitchelson to decide on the event they wanted to deliver.

The group then spent time with ARC’s marketing team learning how to plan a social media advertising campaign, designing flyers and posters, and learning how to write a press release. Their activities caught the attention of NARC Magazine who featured the event on their website, and BBC Radio Tees who sent their reporter Lee Johnson along to speak to the students.

On Friday 12 July, The Immersive Grease Cinema Experience took place in The Point with over 70 people in attendance.

Holly Gallagher, ARC’s Young Persons Coordinator, who oversaw the students for the week said:

“We get a lot of requests for work experience throughout the year and this year we decided

that rather than having individual students coming in for a few days, we would spend a week with a group of students from different backgrounds showing the work that goes in to programming and holding an event at ARC. They all did tremendously well and were successful in programming their own immersive cinema screening in just five days.”

Holly continued:

“We wanted to show the young people that there is a huge variety of careers in the arts. From performance to programming, and from marketing to technical, there are a range of pathways open to them and we felt that this was a really good way of showing them the options available.”