I'm currently in Cape Town working as part of a research project in primary schools in the city. The project is looking at the experiences of new migrant children to school. I'll write more about the project once it's complete but it has been great to act as a consultant supporting the research with advice on visual literacy and film-making. The project uses The Arrival by Shaun Tan as a way of getting the children involved to share their own experiences. I am also helping the children turn their ideas into a short film. This is the trailer I made with the children based on their idea about telling the story of a new child arriving at their school. All the footage was taken by the children!The finished movie will hopefully be ready soon. Watch this space!

A lovely way to wrap up the filming today at the primary school in Cape Town. Following yesterday’s session where we focused our imaginary migrant’s first day at school – an unfriendly, unwelcoming place – today we looked on the bright side: what would a positive, friendly school look like? Me filming on our beautiful set! After yesterday’s filming where the researcher and I had modelled a lot of ideas and techniques for the group, I was hoping that the children would get more of a chance to take the lead today. I hoped that this independence would be both in front of and behind the camera. We started off the session by discussing what they could remember from the previous day’s conversation - about what we had imagined might happen to the boy. Making a film had seemed a bit of an abstract process to them to begin with so I hoped that by refreshing their memory with their ideas, the children would see how these ideas correlated into the actual film. We then sat down to wa...