Power Up:
Creative Education Network
Come and join our creative network. Hear more about our ongoing creative programmes, meet the PiCL team and the practitioners and educators we are working with. Our network is a blend of in-person meetings, online discussions and focussed CPD activities. The CPD activities are run by creative practitioners are delivering high quality, engaging activity tailored and responsive to the changing needs of young people and the educators working with them.
Funded by
Power Up is generously funded by Arts Council England.
October 20th:
Quest: Paths of Creativity
How do we help young people discover where creativity could take them?
An experiential Power Up session exploring how creative, playful approaches can make careers learning more engaging and meaningful for young people. Participants will experience elements of Careers Quest themselves, before stepping back as practitioners to explore the methodology, accessibility, learning and how we can help young people discover their strengths and imagine different creative futures.
Workshop Leader: Kat Hughes
This workshop is ideal for anyone working with upper Key Stage 2 - Key Stage 4 wanting to deliver careers information creatively. Anyone interested in dramatic approaches, game play and creative careers are very welcome too!
📅 Tue 20 Oct 2026 | 4:00 PM - 6:00 PM
📍 St Margaret Ward Academy, ST6 6LZ
NOVEMBER 18th
Power Up: Dance, Movement & the Changing Curriculum
How do we help young people discover where creativity could take them?
An experiential Power Up session exploring how creative, playful approaches can make careers learning more engaging and meaningful for young people. Participants will experience elements of Careers Quest themselves, before stepping back as practitioners to explore the methodology, accessibility, learning and how we can help young people discover their strengths and imagine different creative futures.
Workshop Leader: Kat Hughes
This workshop is ideal for anyone working with upper Key Stage 2 - Key Stage 4 wanting to deliver careers information creatively. Anyone interested in dramatic approaches, game play and creative careers are very welcome too!
📅 Wed 18 Nov 2026 | 5:00 PM - 7:30 PM
📍 King Street Studios 14a King St, Newcastle-under-Lyme, Newcastle, ST5 1EJ
DEcember 8th
Power Up Network: Supercharged Sketchbooks
Develop confidence and creative approaches to sketchbook use working with Key Stage 2 pupils.
This session will build your skills and confidence in expanding the impact of sketchbooks for learning with KS2 pupils and provide you with ideas and activities that can be easily adapted for your pupils and curriculum needs. National Curriculum guidance states: “that pupils should be taught: to create sketch books to record their observations and use them to review and revisit ideas.”
At PiCL we know sketchbooks, as well as being useful tools for recording learning, they can be so much more! They have the potential to be incredible art objects in their own right. We will be exploring a variety of sketchbook approaches, as well as how to make sketchbooks and zines from scratch. Take your sketchbooks to the next level - supercharged and full to bursting with ideas, notes and joyful creativity.
What People Will Leave With
New techniques:
notation
illustration,
collage and zine making
diy/lo-fi printing making skills.
A new confidence and a desire to make your own sketchbooks alongside your pupils.
Alongside this will be a fabulous Christmas shopping opportunity courtesy of our fabulous hosts: Drop City Books!
Session will be led by Iain and Benn from the PiCL team and guest artist Becky Bell:
Benn Price
https://www.instagram.com/iam_bennprice/
Iain Perry
https://www.printgarage.co.uk/
Becky Bell, illustrator and art educator
https://www.instagram.com/soft.pineapples/
Drop City Books
https://www.dropcitybooks.com/
Who It’s For
Primary Art Leads and primary school teachers; Creative practitioners interested in learning new approaches to using sketchbooks are welcome too.
📅 Tue 8 Dec 2026 | 5:00 PM - 7:30 PM
📍 Drop City Books, ST1 1HX
Interested in future conversations like this? Join the Power Up Network to hear about upcoming events, opportunities and shared learning from across the creative education sector.
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