SHINE on Saturdays

SHINE provides an opportunity for 50 hard to reach pupils to take part in enrichment activities aimed at raising attainment. Shine Saturday School was successfully delivered during academic 2023-24 and will continue to do so in 2025. We focused on connectivity, health and wellbeing, enrichment, study support and specialist led art workshops (arts, fashion design, photography). We are currently running a number of enrichment activities such as trips out, Shine Camera Club, cooking, sports and outdoor club, art and mindfulness. During the Summer term 24 we ran an ambitious arts festival style programme with many famous visitors. Our Camera club’s young photographers exhibited their works at Elys Wimbledon, luxury department store, in June and July. We have also delivered Chef's school and taught children cooking, baking and food safety. All activities had a literacy or numeracy base. Our art club collaborated with Thames Fashion and Blondey McCoy on a scarf design project which led to a selection and production of scarves collection and auction, which was very rewarding experience for our young fashion designers. See www.shinemerton.com

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Summer School and holiday provision

Mitcham Town Cluster, Attic Theatre Company and HAF Merton partnered to deliver a performing arts holiday content. We offered a theatre school and dance coursesduring Easter, three weeks of the summer holidays and one week in Oct half term. The programme was fully inclusive and catered for children with SEN children alongside mainstream peers.. Each week escalated into a drama/dance showcase on the final day with guests including families and teachers. The feedback we received from stakeholders and sponsors was very positive. We have also offered our graduates a chance to come back and work on their confidence skills using dance and drama to help them settle into secondary school as well as a mentoring programme to help with transition to secondary.

 

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After School Study Support Clubs 

The Study Support provision is a joint project, creating a partnership amongst all schools from Mitcham Town Cluster. The provision is offered in-house and hosted by our partner schools. All sessions are led by a fully qualified tutor and run from school IT suites, in order to provide a stimulating, modern high-tech teaching and learning environment. The high ratio of tutors to young people enables development of confidence-boosting relationships between students and mentors, ensuring rapid progress and key skills development. The programme is currently working on a school referral basis and focusing on offering specially tailored study support, transition and enrichment courses. We use cutting edge technology such as Oculus Rift, Lego-We Do coding and game creation activities. Use of iPads and artificial intelligence is encouraged to tease out and encourage independent learning. 

 

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The Sanctuary Art and Play Therapy Space

Our stunning Play Therapy Space continued to support children and adults in need this year. Our aim was to provide the emergency response and support for those families struggling with emotional wellbeing and effects of economic crisis. This specially tailored intervention helps over 40 pupils each year to deal positively with emotions which might affect their education and wellbeing, and enables them to fully engage in school and at all costs, avoid exclusion. We were also able to offer a parent helpline and 1-2-1 family interventions. Thanks to the tireless efforts of our Principal Therapist, each one of our member schools now benefits from PT student placements. The project is funded by the Taylor Family Foundation and Wimbledon Foundation.

 

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Green Arts Centre- "the arts where you are"

MTCT is very proud of its recent development, a state-of-the-art eco-friendly Green Arts Centre. GAC is a flexible and inclusive 150 seat venue offering a rich and exciting programme of arts activities and events across a wide range of disciplines such as music, theatre, film and dance. The focus is on creative opportunities for local young people and the programme currently offers free dance and drama sessions for juniors and seniors. The GAC members regularly perform at local venues and events such as Merton Live and Mitcham Carnival. We are delighted to announce that we managed to secure another Arts Council England grant that will see us through academic 2025/26 and enable even more children to participate in a range of arts events. See www.greenartscentre.com​​