Story Hub: Meadows Primary School
We recently finished evaluating our three-year Story Hubs pilot program.
We’re sharing the stories of those first Hubs in this series of articles.
A traffic control room for inter-dimensional exploration.
In 2019, we worked with Meadows Primary School to co-design their Story Hub. Teachers embedded the co-design process into a Sustainability unit for Years 3 to 6, exploring mysterious events in the school. This included prompts like a video “warning” from principal Anthony Potesta. Students were invited to develop theories and design solutions to the disruptions, which were distilled by a Year 5/6 working group into a single concept: a control room for inter-dimensional travel!
The Story Hub was to be co-located within the Community Hub at the school - part of its objective of being accessible to the broader school community, and not just students. This meant artist Alia Syed Rose had to design something that could be easily packed away. She came up with a bank of controls made from old technology that could be hidden behind a screen when not in use, and the students created a set of instructions for how to activate the various elements of the Hub. They proudly showed these off when they led a tour of the Hub at its official launch in early 2020!
While engagement with the program was difficult during the height of the pandemic in 2020 and 2021, we continued to try and respond to teacher needs through Professional Learning. This included working with the partner organisation for the Hub, Banksia Gardens Community Services, in 2020, as their staff adjusted to online learning.
The Meadows Story Hub is currently active through a lunchtime writing club, which uses the Hub to help them with their creative writing.
