A Hull-based education company is set to encourage young people across Bradford to design their own escape room challenges as part of Bradford 2025 UK City of Culture.
Tutors and designers from community interest company Creative Briefs spent three days working with a small group of youngsters from Bradford Virtual School schools in the district earlier this year in the initial phase of the project.
Based in Albert Avenue in Hull, the company specialises in working with young people with special education needs (SEND).
Bradford 2025 first approached Creative Briefs after seeing their work on an Arts Council England-funded project with virtual schools in North Yorkshire, recognising its potential for young people in their own area.
In the pilot stage, children put their creative skills to the test and designed an escape room using locks, codes, puzzles, tasks and clues.
The final version of the escape room was put to the test by a group of participants, who had to crack the codes and use clues to escape.
Now the team from Creative Briefs are returning to Bradford district in November to oversee a roll-out of the project in select special educational needs settings and alternative provisions in the district as part of Bradford 2025’s PLAY programme.
The PLAY programme is a series of events and playful interventions taking place over the course of the district’s year-long UK City of Culture celebrations.
The programme has previously transformed Damart Mill into a cardboard wonderland dreamed up by artist Steven Wintercroft and creative partnership ARCADE while The Great Adventure Build encouraged children to pick up hammers, nails and saws
To build and play on their own playground with adventure play specialists Woodland Tribe.
Another project called RedBall by artist Kurt Perschke took a huge red ball to different neighbourhoods across Bradford.
In addition, PLAY has worked in collaboration with schools, home educators, and partner organisations.
The Bradford 2025 learning programme centres the importance of learning through play. This includes Intergenerational Play, delivered in collaboration with The Linking
Network, a project that links primary schools and care homes to foster strong relationships and bridge the multi-generation gap.
In the coming months, learners will enjoy interactive storytelling experiences delivered by Alive & Kicking and the inclusive design challenges from Creative Briefs and an ongoing project with Bradford’s SEND schools.
Rhiannon Hannon, director of creative engagement and participation at Bradford 2025, UK City of Culture said: “Bradford 2025 are thrilled to be working with Creative Briefs on this exciting project that champions the value of learning through play.
“The pilot version of the project in March showcased the importance of participatory, skills-focused learning, especially for neurodivergent learners.
“Creative Briefs make these skills fun, accessible, and connected to both curriculum subjects and careers outcomes, and we’re very excited to see the puzzles and challenges created by participants in school settings across Bradford District.”
Creative Briefs founder Jason Bowers said: “It’s been a great project so far and we are really looking forward to going back to Bradford later this year.
“It’s also been a bit of an education for us too because many of our team had never been to an escape room before. As part of our preparation, we did the one in Princes Quay with some of our young people in Hull and it gave us some new ideas. It was a great experience and it was really well designed.
“Doing the pilot in Bradford allowed us to test things out over three days and the young people thrived on the experience.
“The experience offered more than just fun. It was a deep dive into problem-solving linked to real-world skills and future potential careers in the art, design and digital sectors.”
As well as developing new design skills, the young people taking part also learned about legendary escape artist Harry Houdini and met some of the Bradford 2025 team involved in large-scale creative projects forming part of the UK City of Culture programme.
At the end of the three-day sessions, the pupils also received Discover Arts Award, an introductory national qualification aimed at encouraging the creative development of young people.
Jason added: “By embedding Arts Award into the Escape Room Challenge, we created opportunity for skill-building, creative growth, confidence and links to creative careers, while having a lot of fun at the same time.
“It’s very exciting to be part of Bradford’s year in the cultural spotlight. The Bradford 2025 team have been fantastic to work with and we’re looking forward to the next stage of this project and beyond”