About Us
Why Protege?
Because Every Child Matters & Every Child is Unique
Protégé supports disadvantaged young people who are struggling with school, with life, with learning…..
Protégé promotes the unique chemistry of artists and young people working together to solve problems, find solutions, overcome obstacles and develop resilience to design their own education and determine their future direction….…
Protégé is a unique social experiment, based in action research developed by founding Director, Sabita Kumari-Dass. Our tailored learning methodology has been tried and tested over ten years with young people in the driving seat and award-winning artists providing transformative learning and industry standard skills development.
Through a Leonardo-Inspired Lens
Too mad, too pregnant, too interesting, too complex, too recently arrived, too angry, too quiet – some of the different reasons why some talented kids were kicked out of school in recent years.
Protégé is a real life social experiment inspired by Leonardo da Vinci – based on the idea that if he were alive today – history’s greatest polymath would struggle with the curriculum and quite likely be kicked out of school.
Globally, increasing numbers of children, including exceptionally talented ones are struggling with mainstream education. The mental health fallout from peer pressure, social media, child poverty, generational worklessness, broken families is taking its toll in the classroom, leading to under-attainment, falling behind, falling apart… Schools are struggling to make sense of this tsunami.
And so, Protégé asks, if, like Leonardo, Einstein, Mozart and Edison these stressed-out kids could step away from this pressure cooker of expectation and direct their own education, what might they become and what might we learn?
The Protégé experiment is about nurturing and incubating the discarded raw talent of those who are falling through the gaps as society, family, schools, religious institutions struggle to stay in tune with a shifting world order.
Protégé’s vision is to challenge perceptions and erode the barriers to see what happens when unique individuals are given the creative freedom to surprise, delight and shock us with their potential.
Referrals to Protégé
Working closely with local authority inclusion teams, mental health teams, specialist schools and other agencies dealing with exclusion we support young people who will benefit from a second chance. If you would like to discuss a potential referral please email info@protegetv.co.uk
We steer clear of past performance and academic achievement as qualifying criteria. The Protégé x–factor is about nurturing ‘eclectic curiosity’ – however dampened it may have been by circumstance. The characteristic of creative thinkers (as documented by Guy Claxton and Bill Lucas in Be Creative, March 2004) is similar to the criteria we work with ie resilience, resourcefulness, seeing and making connections, reflection and risk-taking, as well as the essential features of Leonardo da Vinci – his eclectic curiosity and passion. Sometimes these traits will not be instantly visible, so Protégé’s approach is to look through a Leonardo-inspired lens at young people in whom these latent qualities may have been suppressed, but could be re-ignited through a nurturing and confidence-building approach.
Eclectic Curiosity
‘Eclectic Curiosity’ reflects the multi-dimensional nature of Leonardo da Vinci’s breadth of interests and is founded in a belief that every child invents, and has a creative spark. The responsibility of education then is to devise a support structure where every child can ignite that spark. The enquiring mind of the young child pursues a myriad of observations and interests, but it is not clear what stimulates a particular temporary path of discovery. By exploring the context, influencing factors, and the signposts that guide a young person’s curiosity, and by allowing the young learner to continue to explore experientially and according to their apparently serendipitous motivations we support their natural quest for learning, and also learn a great deal about the acquisition of knowledge, skills and experience.
As it stands, the current emphasis on a structured curriculum-driven system of learning runs counter to eclecticism. Protégé’s aim is to create long-term engagement in which we jointly develop, with participants, an understanding of their lifestyles, abilities and aspirations.
Protégé Partnerships
Protégé works in partnership with cultural organisations, the third sector, media agencies and broadcasters committed to social and educational innovation.
We work with and disseminate our findings to schools, policy developers, alternative service providers and agencies responsible for the growing number of young people currently out of mainstream education.
Central Saint Martins
Protégé began as an experiment in 2006 with Central Saint Martins College of Art. Responding to the Every Child Matters, AimHigher and Widening Participation agendas, we believed then, and still do, that every child has a right to learn, to be well, to be creative, to feel safe and to fulfil their potential. Principles also embraced in the United Nations Conventions on the Right of the Child.
Central Saint Martins was an important first home. In many ways the divergent young people we work with share ‘rebel dna’ with the successful alumni of CSM – Jarvis Cocker, Paul Smith, Alexander McQueen – who also fell out of mainstream education but whose innate raw creativity helped them to overcome bullying, adversity, illness, elitism to have their maverick talent recognised so they could make a valued contribution to our culture.
Somerset House
In 2009 Protégé established its constitutional independence in the old Victorian Vaults of Somerset House – an inspiring centre for art, culture and creative exchange. A spectacular neo-classical palace sitting between the Strand and the River Thames, it offered marginalised young people a taste of a different world, a different perspective and a sense of belonging to establishment culture and heritage. During the summer months 55 fountains dance in the courtyard of Somerset House, and in winter visitors skate on the ice rink. Protégé’s students relished sharing their work environment with London Fashion Week and the British Fashion Council, proving to themselves and others that learning can happen, not just in schools and colleges but wherever they decide to accept the challenge.
Click on the links below to see examples of recent projects and partnerships.
Our ‘Fluorescent Adolescent’ project provided an access route to the musical heritage of the UK. Themes of identity and immigration, fashion and creativity, in the face of changing culture and society turned our disengaged young people into avid researchers and cultural historians.
The approach of ‘young people in the driving seat’ is a distinctive feature of Protégé. Students engage with the programme in a quasi-professional manner as ‘researchers’ working alongside artists to test and refine our methodology for self-directed learning. Expanding on this responsibility, students now take the driving seat to articulate our findings and achievements.
Project link: Fluorescent Adolescent
This is further expressed through the following project ‘Adolescence: The Concept Album’ created as a direct result of the learning young people had gained from the ‘Fluorescent Adolescent’ project. In this project young people and music industry professionals worked together to create a remix album of classic songs about the teenage experience.
It is Protégé’s ability to place our young people with the appropriate artist/industry expert that allowed for our young people to raise their ambitions to a level in which they felt capable of beginning this project. There is a chemistry we aim for between young person and artist. When it is found it greatly accelerates the rate of learning and development of the work of the young person.
Project link: Adolescence: The Concept Album
Not all creative working artists have the right combination of empathy, patience, work ethic, and ego to work effectively with the ‘hardest of the hard to reach’. Our ability to assess and select our artists is in itself an important internal process. The impact a choice of artist makes on a project can influence everything from how the project is delivered, logistically, and how engaged our young people feel. Both of which determine the success or failure of a project.
Young people trust at Protégé they will be supported by artists and mentors who support their learning, rather than simply direct it towards their own interests. This approach is further evidenced in the key partnerships we build. Our partners promote Protégé’s role as a trusted voice and thought leader on educational exclusion and its links to lost childhood, further solidifying our ambition of ‘Protégé as a trusted voice’.
The ‘High Street Experiment’ initiative aimed to develop the employability and workplace skills of divergent young people. Our new boutique gallery in Richmond is a dynamic space for students to work with our artists to learn new skills, curate shows, begin to develop their understanding of local business, and learn how they can, alongside our artists, offer bespoke art and design services to the community.
Working with Protégé, Amyn (student) identified opportunities for him to build a career in acting. The first step in this process was for him to identify work opportunities such as paid internship programmes and work experience placements. Traditionally this type of research would be conducted away from the public, however working from this public-facing space gave Amyn the opportunity to interact with the public, practice social and presentation skills, and being to understand the fundamentals of networking and presenting himself as an actor, not just a young person with a challenging and difficult personal past.
In his own words: “I now want to further myself in a productive environment to gain more experience in all dynamics of theatre. …I believe it would excel my strengths to work closely in a theatre-based environment, which would also give me an opportunity to further myself and my understanding of the industry.”
Project link: High Street Experiment
The ‘60’s Boutique’ project was an opportunity to explore the boundaries of our new workplace as well as the development of the ‘teenager’ identity and persona in post-war Britain.
In the words of the students: “Guided by Protégé artists we accessed this heritage by exploring various archives and creating our own versions of iconic designs and products. Many of us have been working on a weekly basis at the Protégé Boutique, and we have spent time exploring some of the earliest London boutiques. … We learned about how Mary Quant made the mini dress popular, and we learned from cultural historians and curators what this meant for the previously ‘buttoned-up’ women living in post-war Britain. Each design [we made] reflected our personal understanding and interpretation of what we had learned.”
The project allowed young people to re-live the explosion of creativity in London in the 1960s and they saw how that period permanently established Britain as a leader and a trendsetter in fashion, music and individual style the world over.
Project link: 60’s Boutique
During these projects, our work has also extended to specialist school groups. The requirements for these students, though different from traditional schools, provided an opportunity to test the Protégé methodology within a school environment. One of the main concerns is the high drop-off rate of students once they leave a well-supported education environment. The types of sessions we employed, especially for these specialist school groups, were geared towards preparing them for post-graduate life.
Our ‘Hooker & Kew’ project focussed on explorer and botanist Joseph Dalton Hooker, who served as the Director of the Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew, for 20 years. This choice was driven by our thinking that there is a high chance that these young people would not have come into contact or learned about Hooker as part of their curriculum, and secondly, the Protégé approach is such that we take someone with large-scale achievements and break them down in a way that is practical and applicable for our young people.
As a significant number of this cohort are approaching the school leaving age we worked closely with curators Cam Sharp Jones and Tom McCarter and learning head, Steve Crosby at Kew Gardens, and colleagues from pastoral support teams at the specialist school and mental health teams to develop course content so it also included ‘beyond school skills’ and workplace familiarity to increase the employability of young people who were considering their progression pathways. This was made possible by the flexible and supportive approach of our main partner Kew Gardens.
As a direct result of this project, 44 participants secured Arts Award accreditation in 2017 & 2018. For most of this group, this is their first and only formal qualification.
Project link: Hooker & Kew
National Lottery Awards
Protégé has been selected as a finalist in the National Lottery Awards.
