Line Managers: Nick White (Arts Engagement & Outreach Officer) and Katherine Hoskins (Arts Engagement & Outreach Manager)
Pathways Programme: Pathways to Arts, Culture and Heritage 2024
Organisation Summary: The Octagon Theatre & Westlands Entertainment Venue run a wide variety of programmes offering opportunities to take part and experience the joy of the creative arts. In doing so, we are able to provide more opportunities for our communities to watch, take part and benefit from arts and cultural activities.
How did hosting an intern via the Professional Pathways programme benefit you and your organisation/department?
Although we’ve run work experience programmes for a long time, and although we have one apprentice with another to come, this is the first time we’ve hosted an intern so off the bat we learned lots about how that sort of offer can fit within our wider programme. Work Experience & apprenticeships are for 15-18’s, and then we’ve got volunteering + a graduates programme + lots of support for established arts & culture professionals: hosting an intern means we have clear opportunities for undergraduates too. This is important (a) for the concept of a clear pathway (b) brings a different skillset/mindset/aptitude into our team (c) means we can build meaningful relationships with higher education too. Since hosting our Professional Pathway intern we’ve already identified that we want to build on similar approaches in partnership with Bath Spa, Arts University Bournemouth and even Yeovil College’s University Centre etc.
Furthermore, there was genuine benefit to our wider Arts Engagement & Outreach programme. Our intern played an important role in practical delivery support & impact measurement for our Health & Wellbeing Movement Through Cancer project, research for our Creative Learning work and for two performance projects we’re commissioning, as well as listening to their general perceptions on career development. It’s easy for us to get used to our own professional capital – an intern helped us approach problem solving in a different way.
How was your experience of hosting a Pathways intern?
Our intern was very hard working, polite, inquisitive and thorough. She had a long daily commute from Exeter to Yeovil which meant early starts and late finishes + lots of train time but she never appeared jaded. She also wrote two wonderful blogs – one about the Movement Through Cancer project and one about her week in general. Blogs have become an important part of capturing our work as it develops and it’s fair to say that hosting an intern has cemented that. Even though our intern completed her hours in four days, she finished a few pieces of work off from home on the fifth day – technically her day off. This commitment to see things through in her own time is testament to her.
We offered a challenge for the pre-placement student tasks a few weeks before the placement. The work they did was incredibly detailed & impressive. It was very, very helpful to go to the presentation day and I would highly recommend anyone that can attend should, even if they don’t have a project contribution for it; it just helped put the whole Professional Pathways concept into a bigger context and was great to do some light networking with other hosting organisations too.
Given the Professional Pathways internship is 35 hours in total, how would you recommend ensuring both you and your intern(s) gain as much as possible from the experience?
Our intern attended their placement in person, although the option was there for hybrid working, this approach worked brilliantly as our intern was able to get a better sense of our organisation and the many people working at our cultural venue. It equally enabled our staff, volunteers and associated artists the opportunity to meet and get to know our intern, and for them to make further connections which may later serve them down the line. By attending in person our intern was also able to take part and witness first-hand the delivery of our activity, meet participants, and grow their understanding of the impact and value of our community outreach programme.
Why would you recommend hosting an intern via Professional Pathways?
If there are tasks you need support with; if you have a programme you are proud of; if you genuinely care about talent & career development then an undergraduate is a perfect fit. They don’t need to be studying a creative subject to work in a creative industries organisation and in fact maybe it’s better if they don’t because they have a different objectivity. They’ll also bring energy and willingness to work outside of learned behaviour or expected parameters. Undergraduates have a hunger to learn that can genuinely influence their own career/life decisions too which is exciting. As a host organisation you can play an important role on someone’s journey.
I remember hosting placements for 3rd year students at previous organisations: in some cases you can directly offer them employment! In other cases, you meet them at networking events years later where they tell you about the journey they’ve been on, and you learn about the impact you had down the line. It’s very rewarding.