Boys in Mind & Saint Mary’s Catholic Primary School
Boys in Mind is a youth-led charity, who teamed up with students at Saint Mary’s Catholic Primary School, a state school located in Bath (ages 4 to 11 years). Although this team did not take part in the workshops organised by Project Soothe, they heard about Project Soothe in their school assembly and arranged their own tool inspired by the Project Soothe concept and involved students in submitting soothing photographs they had taken themselves. They co-created a video with Andrew Hassenruck, the film lead at Boys in Mind, featuring children of all ages showcasing their soothing images and telling us why and how they find these images soothing. We spoke to Boys in Mind about their project.
Read the case studyHow did you come to design your tool?
Through academic research Prof. Stella Chan and colleagues created Project Soothe, part of which includes an image bank of soothing images. We wanted to work with the children of Saint Mary’s Catholic Primary School in Bath to explore this concept. Through engagement with a whole school approach, we collected over 100 images from 70 individuals with a brief explanation of why they found their image soothing.
Can you please describe your tool and the procedure of making it?
As well as the photographic side of the exercise, we worked with a small group of emotionally challenged Year 3 students to make a short film about 25 of the soothing images. With generous funding from Project Soothe, we also helped create a portable exhibition to be displayed in the school and shared with the local community and other schools as a gift of compassion.
The project was led by Richard Bullard and Andrew Hassenruck, who both work with a youth-led organisation Boys in Mind.
Below is a brief description of the process and it may seem complicated but was a delight to do.
- Presentation to school showing a video and examples of the types of images which may be soothing.
- Children and staff are invited to think about what calms them and to take photos and provide a sentence as to why their image is soothing.
- School contact parents with a release form and timescale for submitting images.
- School collects images with child/teacher’s names and year group and quotes into a spreadsheet and consent forms for usage.
- Photos are processed to get the best quality from the image.
- Images photoshopped with school logo, quote, first name and year group and any other info desired.
- Photos are printed and inserted into transparent sleeves.
- The film team is made up of about 6 children, and they select 25 images which they think are the most soothing.
- Film team receive training in all aspects of filming
- Re-prints of these photos and they are laminated for the display and filming
- Each of the 25 selected photographers are offered the chance to be in the film.
- Film team sets up and films, with assistance, the 25 photographers.
- The film is professionally edited into a short film for distribution by the school and Boys in Mind
- All the photographs are edited into a montage with music which can be used in the school for reflective times
- All the prints are mounted in a simple frame for each of the photographers.
- A display board can be obtained for a portable exhibition which can be shared with other schools or the local community.
- A red carpet event takes place in the school to show the film and hand out the prints to each of the children involved.
- School and parents report on the benefits to the Film making group and the school as a whole.
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Funding Support
We are grateful to have received funding from the following organisations.
