Our Journeys for the I Am Festival 2026

From 9-13th March we joined with other SEN schools around London to take part in the I Am Festival. Now in its eleventh year, the I Am Festival brings together D/deaf, disabled and neurodivergent young people to empower, celebrate and explore their creativity. This year’s festival explored the theme ‘Journeys’ and we decided to focus this on two questions, ‘Where have we come from? Where are we going?’

During the I Am Festival week pupils had the chance to explore the theme in their different lessons, for example;

• Across Key Stage Two and Three pupils created paper birds and talked about migrating swifts.  This was an activity that was completed by pupils in different schools across London as part of the I Am Festival resource pack.
• During English lessons pupils were inspired by Paddington Bear’s letters to Aunt Lucy and wrote postcards about their favourite journey.  The postcards were addressed to friends in other classes, posted and delivered!
• The Post 16 Cheer Up Gardeners went to Pen Ponds to learn about migratory wildfowl – birds that have travelled on a long journey to come and live in our country, one pupil noted that his family travelled a long way from Russia to come and live in the UK.
• In ICT, Acorn class created a PowerPoint about their journey to their future self.
• For Wild Time lessons pupils in Primary created ‘Journey Sticks’ on a walk around Berrylands, this was another activity from the I Am Festival resource pack.
• History pupils in Key Stage 3 learnt about evacuation during World War Two.
• In Drama lessons pupils wrote monologues to their future self.
• The arts activities continued over lunchtime with pupils enjoying an open air Karaoke Club on Wednesday.

On Thursday post-16 pupils visited Tate Modern to take part in the I Am Festival with other students from SEN schools across London.  As part of the festival we joined pupils from different schools in a flash mob in the Turbine Hall at Tate Modern!  This was organised by VOOT Collective and involved sensory suitcases, movement and call and response actions.  Activities at Tate Modern were curated and delivered by Cultural Ambassadors – a group of deaf, disabled and neurodiverse young people including a St Philip’s pupil. Over a year the Cultural Ambassadors met weekly to develop their creative skills, work with different artists, and design their own activities for the festival.

The week finished in style as we welcomed DJ Joker to host an afternoon disco in the Sports Hall with dance, catwalk, dress-up, music and the birds made in Art lessons on display.  DJ Joker works with Slide Dance & Club Soda who employ adults with additional needs as arts facilitators and performers.  To fit with the theme of the week we invited pupils to dress to the disco as their ‘future selves’ and we had some great costumes, from a bus driver to a National Trust History Guide!

Finally, we offered a family pottery workshop in our Art Room led by teacher Laura Mangat. The theme for the workshop was celebrating family histories and where they have come from by creating a family crest. This club was different to an after-school club as it was for parent/carers to attend with their children.  The workshop was very popular and we hope to run one again in the future.