Rethinking Evaluation in Education: Rekindle’s Collaboration with Vanessa Lefton

Rekindle Tulse Hill is currently hosting Vanessa Lefton for a 12-month research project linked to her PhD in Social Anthropology with Visual Media at the University of Manchester.

Her work brings together the fields of politics and anthropology to rethink how evaluation happens in the charity and public sectors. After nearly a decade working in government, Vanessa has seen how certain demands for ‘evidence’ can create unrealistic – and at times harmful – pressures. Her aim is to develop an improved approach to evaluation that is inclusive, empathetic and rooted in the lived experience of the people such services are meant to support.

Introducing “Evaluating a Space of Care” 

Evaluation typically measures the quality of a service or practice based on a predefined set of ideas about what is ‘good’. In this research, the aim is to create an approach that allows young people at Rekindle to decide for themselves what should be evaluated, and to facilitate this process in a way that matches Rekindle’s own values. Can we create an evaluation which is genuinely youth led, critically conscious, creative and caring?  

Fun Methods for Joyful Evaluation

Placing the words ‘joyful’ and ‘evaluation’ together should be a misnomer. But this is my hope – that through utilising artful and engaging activities like filmmaking, together we can pioneer a new way of learning about what Rekindle does. An emphasis on creative methods will bring a language and way to explore the internal worlds, emotional effects, and sensory experiences, of an educational space based on care.

A young person re-designing a Rekindle T- shirt with words about South London life, as part of a special T-shirt printing workshop 

As a visual anthropologist and passionate believer in inclusive community building, I’ll be bringing together participatory, anthropological and filmmaking techniques to facilitate young people’s engagement with Rekindle’s work. This will include: 

• Participatory filmmaking sessions, in which young people use filmmaking as a process for thinking critically about experiences of care in their own lives and consider what should be happening in spaces like Rekindle. Through this method, young people will have the tools to explore how Rekindle features in their own lives and can experiment with an accessible language for sharing their future hopes and expectations of Rekindle. 

• Multi-media methods including photography and sound recording, for young people to explore their daily lives outside Rekindle. Understanding the purpose of Rekindle requires reflection on the ecosystem around the school, through the eyes of the people it is for. Visual and audio approaches are useful for recording 360 experiences outside the classroom – for example, giving a sense of daily practices, experiences of time, and exploration of personal feelings of safety and belonging.

A young person taking a self-portrait while spending time at Rekindle 

• Ethnographic research in and around Rekindle. I’ll be using ‘participant observation’, which is a balance of observing and taking part in daily lives and practices. In this case, it means spending time experiencing Rekindle with the young people, taking part in sessions and getting to know Tulse Hill. The purpose is to gain a greater understanding of everyday life and what is important for young people, staff and the wider Rekindle community involved. 

A photograph of a young person playing a specially designed Monopoly game, built by a Creative Facilitator to reflect gentrification in Tulse Hill

Learning about Care 

One area which we will focus on is to give young people the tools to think critically about experiences of Rekindle as a “space of care”. Investigating how ‘care’ is created requires a method which sheds a light on how relationships build over time, which considers the context in which care is taking place, and which offers a language that can convey experiences that are hard to describe just in words or numbers. Young people will be invited to consider their experiences of time, physical space, objects, food shared, and structured activities offered, and how these together build that sense of being cared for.

Get Involved 

If you are a parent, teacher, funder, or anyone else who has a relationship with Rekindle – please do get in touch. It will be vital to hear your thoughts: on Rekindle Tulse Hill, on spaces of care for young people inside and outside Rekindle, and anything else you think should be considered as part of this work. 

*Photographs are from ethnographic research at Rekindle Tulse Hill this Autumn. They show young people taking part in the Voices of South London project.