Children’s Board
Photography by Ilyas Ayub at The Sound Hive Launch Event, Beckton Globe Library
Overview
The Children’s Board is made up of 8-11 year olds from across Newham and has an important voice in shaping Culture Within Newham’s activity programme. The board was set up in 2024, when we contacted local primary schools to give children the chance to decide what creative and fun things happen in Newham. Our vision? Setting up a board that could get children involved in programming exciting events near where they live, and supporting Newham’s future artists and creative leaders.
Every year the Children’s Board shape a manifesto for art and culture they would like to see in Newham, and then commission a major new public artwork. We run monthly Children’s Board meetings with our partner primary schools during term time, so that it is possible for every child to attend.
In 2025-2026, the Children’s Board have shaped BASSTONE PLAYGROUND, part of the programme for East Bank’s The Music is Black festival. In 2024-2025, the children commissioned the Sound Hive, which toured libraries and primary schools across the borough for almost a year.
Programming a festival art installation
The 2025-2026 Children’s Board worked with the East Bank Partners to commission a family-friendly activity for the first weekend of The Music is BlackFestival at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park on 13-14 June 2026. Throughout the year, the Children’s Board researched what children would like to see at a festival. They visited the East Bank for inspiration and were the first school group to see the newly opened V&A East. In the end, they commissioned artist Linett Kamala to develop a creative ‘chill zone’ playground.
How did they decide?
The Children’s Board started the year by setting their manifesto for art and culture in Newham through a zine-making workshop with artist Tasnim Mahdy, the Children’s Board Facilitator. The final manifesto is available here.
The manifesto informed a call out to local artists to come up with ideas for a creative ‘chill zone’ – somewhere to have fun, to play, to be at peace and chill, but most importantly a place for everyone, that all could access and that’s inclusive.
Culture Within Newham then got various artists to prepare a pitch for the Children’s Board, who were tasked with choosing an artist who would take forward their vision for the festival.
BASSTONE PLAYGROUND
After Dragon’s Den-style pitches, the Children’s Board chose Linett Kamala, who offered not just one space but three – a place for Performance, for Play and for Peace. The festival zone is called BASSTONE PLAYGROUND, and you can find out all about it here.
After learning about communications and marketing a festival from Culture Within Newham’s Content Strategy & Engagement Builder Lalah-Simone Springer, the Children’s Board shaped their own logo, and informed the posters for the festival installation. A teacher taking part said that they had ‘no idea that so much would be covered’ and had learned loads themselves.
Creating an interactive sound artwork
In 2024-2025 the Children’s Board worked on a different project.
We were so excited that New City, Rosetta and Gallions Primary Schools wanted to join the first edition of our project. Eighteen children signed up to join the board and the process began.
First, we needed to know what they would like to make an artwork about. The ‘themes’ for the artwork were gathered at school fairs just before the Summer holidays (pictured). We put boards up in the playground asking questions like:
Children choose what themes they find most important for the Children’s Board to work on.
What is important to you?
What do you care about?
What would you change in the world?
Children at the primary schools came up with some brilliant themes. Turns out, they wanted artworks about:
Connecting with friends, family and pets
Improving the environment, nature, and issues such as littering, and
Creating more access for all children to fun and new experiences.
Two Ricebox Studio members run a workshop for Children’s Board members
Culture Within Newham then found artists who were keen to work with the children on the themes they had identified and got three artist teams to pitch their artwork ideas to our Children’s Board, like a mini Dragon’s Den. The Children’s Board listened to the presentations, asked them questions, and then had a very tough choice to make to vote for the winner. They chose Ricebox Studio with a plan for an interactive sound table that taught others about the environment.
“We got to decide which artists and we had to vote because it was all democratic. It was tricky to choose the artwork because they were all really good!”
The Ricebox Studio team visited each school to record sounds for the table with the children and collect ideas about what the table could look like. The table celebrated the theme the children chose, and features their drawings and voices. In the end, the artwork was named ‘The Sound Hive,’ as it explores what’s good and bad for our environment by following the path of a bee. Learn more about The Sound Hive and Ricebox Studio here.
The Sound Hive was launched at Beckton Globe Library in April 2025, and over 100 people came to the launch event. Since then, the Sound Hive has been ‘on tour’ to Newham Citizens Science Fair, various primary schools and almost all libraries throughout Newham.
You can read everything about the first year of the Children’s Board and the making of the Sound Hive in our case study or by watching the video above.
Photography by Ilyas Ayub
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