Abstract

This report presents the evaluation findings from a collaborative venture undertaken by the University
of Lincoln (UoL), the Lincolnshire Traveller Initiative (LTI) and LiNCHigher, the local Uni Connect
partnership. The project formed part of the course for the third year Media Production and Sound and
Music Production degree, for the compulsory module on community engagement. The project took
place weekly for approximately two hours in Semester 2 (February – May 2022). At the end of the
module the UoL student mentors were required to produce two reports on the programme, one as a
group and one individually, to successfully complete the module. Each student mentor group was
tasked with producing a media product that was dependent on the skills and interests of the children
they were working with and agreed jointly by the group at the start of the programme. The evaluation
was conducted by the LiNCHigher evaluation team based in the Lincoln Higher Education Research
Institute (LHERI) at the UoL.
This academic year (2021-22), for the first time, two groups of UoL student mentors worked with two
groups of Traveller children between the ages of 11-16 from two different sites in the county. The
project took place on Tuesdays; one group ran in the mornings (Group A) the other in the afternoons
(Group B) when the LTI learning bus was scheduled to visit the sites. The project included at least
one visit by each group to the UoL’s recording studios. This meant the children’s usual learning,
including their functional skills, was put on hold for the duration of the project. A LTI member of staff
was present at all sessions. Both groups chose to produce a music video and Group A also produced
a radio programme