our vision and strategy

excellence in arts education

Eastside Educational Trust encourages children to work together and to learn from one another, giving them the opportunity to build on what they learn at school, to acquire new skills or simply to have fun and enjoy the arts and literature in London. By enabling young people to work collaboratively and empowering students in the decision making process, we believe that young people can develop leadership skills and go on to achieve more than they ever thought possible. At the heart of every Eastside project is the belief that children of all ages and abilities have the capacity to surpass expectations and surprise us with their resourcefulness, creativity and enterprise.

We believe that the arts provide powerful teaching tools that can readily engage young minds, especially those whose learning needs have been overlooked. By replacing more traditional teaching methods with creative approaches to learning, we are able to introduce educational themes without the participants even realising that the learning process has begun. Eastside refers to this approach as ‘stealth education’ which has proved to be very effective, particularly amongst disaffected teens. Engaging children’s interest has always been the key to Eastside’s success, making projects relevant to young people, giving them a clear goal, and making the learning process interesting and above all, fun. 

Eastside’s vision and strategy consists of three important key elements: 

1.) unlocking potential  -   2.) sharing talents  -   3.) raising achievement

unlocking potential

Eastside Educational Trust has a very flexible and adaptable approach to working with young people. We believe that each young person is unique and therefore every project we run is different and tailor-made to address the needs and requirements of the participants involved. We aim to introduce young people to new experiences and to unfamiliar art forms, giving them the opportunity to try new things. We encourage our students to engage with the arts in enjoyable and exciting ways and enable young people to articulate their views through creative expression. As well as unlocking their potential, we also work to develop the potential of teachers and our Associate Artists by constantly challenging them to work in new ways. In addition we also run a vibrant and successful volunteering programme which aims to unlock the potential of volunteers from the world of business and the local community. Our volunteers add value to our projects by bringing fresh perspectives and new ideas to all areas of our work.

sharing talents

Eastside draws on a great wealth of talent, experience and professional expertise and shares those talents with schools and the wider community. To do this, we encourage close collaboration between artists and teachers ensuring that each partnership contributes to the ongoing professional development of the adult educators, as well as providing unique learning experiences for all of the young participants. Eastside also offers creative INSETs for teachers and arts based training, including a continuous training and skills share programme for all our Associate Artists, volunteers and staff. This ensures that everyone working with Eastside is able to share their talents and learn from each other. Our celebrity patrons are also keen to share their talents with Eastside and the young people we work with by leading celebrity masterclasses as well as attending some of our workshops, projects and events. Often the greatest talents we discover are those of the young people we work with so the learning process is always mutual and we involve young people in the planning and development of our projects, as much as possible.

raising achievement 

At the heart of Eastside’s vision, is our aim to raise young people’s aspirations, levels of self esteem and standards of achievement; this is key to everything we do. Careful preparation and well planned aims designed to raise young people’s achievement are key components of our work and it is important to us that we are able to measure the impact of our projects against our objectives. Eastside has an enviable reputation for comprehensive and thorough evaluations and recommendations from previous projects constantly inform the development of new work.