Assessing - Gold Arts (Beatriz Makinen-Mendez)

Reflection On Developing Skills:

During the fashion show committee meetings, I have developed on key leadership skills, such as being more confident and organised. I have become more confident in leading and presenting ideas to further improve the event, for example, I suggested that there should be a few more rehearsals specific to different walks so that when it gets to the real rehearsals, no other walk has to wait excessively long for their turn in presenting their walk if a previous walk made lots of mistakes. I thought that this was really unfair, especially if that certain walk was placed last in the running order and had the in initiative to rehearse before already and knew what they were doing and still had to wait a substantial amount of time due to another catwalk being under rehearsed. That was a key issue last year that caused a lot of bitterness between catwalks, so I definitely did not want a repeat of the mistakes so I did set this idea out. I also developed organisation skills, which again as I have said before, is the skill that I feel the most confident in already, but I did feel as if I had to be turn it up a notch and be even more organised during the planning and execution of the event, because if I did not do a task on time, everything else was delayed, so it was imperative to keep on top of the planning. I also feel that I improved on my emotional intelligence and motivational skills. According to online sites such as thebalancecareers.com, some of the most important leadership skills are as followed;

1. Communication

2. Motivation

3. Delegation

4. Creativity

5. Emotional Intelligence

The fact that emotional intelligence was in the top five really struck me and I wanted to find out a bit more on the meaning so that I could apply it into my role in organising the fashion show. According to globalleadershipfoundation.com, half of emotional intelligence is down to your own self, so self awareness, emotional self awareness, accurate self assessment, self confidence, along with self management; self control, transparency, adaptability, achievement drive and initiative. The other half of emotional intelligence is down to social and everyone else that you have to work with. Those skills are social awareness; empathy, organisational, awareness, service orientation, along with relationship management; inspirational leadership, developing others, influence, change catalyst, conflict management, building bonds and teamwork and collaboration. I really did want to improve on this really key leadership skills through my role as an organiser, designer of a walk and fashion show society helper, in preparation for the event itself. First of all, I focused on the self aspect of emotional intelligence, so I made sure that I was aware of what I had to do and the role that I needed to play in this part. I also needed self confidence when explaining to the models the routine along with when putting my ideas and suggestions across as I had to stand with the ideas and be confident whilst presenting so that other people would also be confident in what I was trying to put across and to accept my ideas. If I did not seem confident with the routines of the walk or with my ideas, it would be basically impossible for others to believe and have good faith in how my plans and ideas would turn out. I also had to have a lot of self control to make sure that myself as an organiser, helper and designer was doing all that I could be doing leading up to the event. There needed to be a constant chain of work and effort being produced from my side or the things I needed to do in relation to the team would not work out. I also had to take initiative when ordering the pizzas for example, as to how many to order and what to actually order. This might seem as a little thing, but if the models and people involved in the team, don't all have enough pizzas or don't get any at all, when other people did get more than them, these people will not be happy. It was also important to order gluten free pizzas and most, if not all be vegetarian as that would be inclusive to the majority of people. It was also important when working out things like the budget and how much could be spent on the pizzas and also the flowers for the teachers in the art department.

I then developed on the social aspect of emotional intelligence and made sure to incorporate everyone involved and to help those who needed it in preparation to the fashion show and even during the event. For example, I motivated the models during rehearsals to get them to see and envision what the final product would be and how amazing the catwalk would look if it was well rehearsed. There was quite a few rehearsals to attend to make sure that everything went smoothly in the real performance, so it was imperative to keep the models very motivated to actually even attend these rehearsals in the first place, and to not drop out after figuring out the amount of work even as a model would require in preparation for the event. I had to build bonds with these models, most who I had never spoken to before, and it was really important that I got on with them so that we could work together as a team to produce the best catwalk possible. Communication skills were imperative when building bonds as it was also important to transfer the ideas to the models.

It was very important to inspire and motivate these models so that they could produce the best possible walk as I said and so that they would feel good with themselves with the work they put in. The catwalks were a very two sided thing, both models and designers played important roles when trying to get the best possible catwalk, as the designers actually designed and made the physical clothes but then the models were the ones going out on the stage and displaying and showing off these garments. If the models themselves did not look confident or comfortable when walking around the stage during the show, it would come across as though the clothes themselves aren't good and comfortable. I tried to do everything in my power to make sure that the models were inspired and motivated with the show, by congratulating them after each rehearsal, trying to get them to envision what the end product would look like after all the endless amounts of work of them rehearsing would look like, and how to be more confident with their walks on stage. There was one rehearsal where it was really close to the actual event and everyone was particularly more nervous and it was more of a talk rather than a rehearsal to try motivate the models to just do their best and that this event is just for fun and even if someone trips over, no one in the audience would be nasty or remember it. There was also a rehearsal aimed at one singular model who was in my catwalk, who did look really miserable and not confident when rehearsing our walk, so this rehearsal was not about making her be a target or make her feel bad, but more about getting her to be confident in herself and enjoy the process. This was about a twenty minutes trying to rehearse with her separately and to motivate her into confidence. There was also another rehearsal which was solely on getting everyone more confident in their walks which seemed beneficial as the end result was worth it.

Along with inspiring other models, I also tried to motivate those participants involved in fashion show society who were making their own garments in contribution to the fashion show society catwalk. I helped with the actual making and designing (most were more than capable of designing amazing garments, but however just needed help when actually making the garment) with these younger students, but I also encouraged them to push their ideas and designs more so that they could get the best version of their work that they could possible achieve. It was very important to encourage these participants to actually get them to continuously come to fashion show society club every week and to turn up and get on with their work. This fashion show society club started in the middle weeks of September until the week of the actual fashion show itself. This was a whopping six months in total of having to attend one lunchtime every week and just working on their designs and garments, so it was imperative that they all stayed fully motivated to carry on with their designs so that it was the best representation of work to show off in the fashion show. When helping out with these students and their making of garments, I did ask them when I helped them, how they were feeling about modelling their own pieces and how they felt about the fashion show as a whole. I did get a lot of students saying how nervous they were for modelling itself or not finishing in time and I did all I could to try eliminate these fears and focus on what they could be doing instead. I thought that it was so much more important to show them that instead of stressing for the show, that they should just enjoy the process or it really is not worth doing if you don't enjoy it. It is also much more productive to get on with the workload rather than thinking of how much there is to do. There are only 24 hours in a day and it just isn't possible to do more than what is possible to do in that time scale. It was little things like that which I kept trying to motivate them to keep going with the show and not to worry about it.

Messages & Communication:

When it came to messages and communicating with all the participants involved with the show, the most easiest ways to communicate and to get messages across to all participants, was to send messages out in assemblies, emails and to give out messages in set form times in the mornings. In my school's assemblies, the protocol is to write a message on a piece of paper or print it out on to a piece of paper and just before the assembly starts, you hand the piece of paper to the head girl of the school who sits on the front row of the assembly. At the end of the assembly, she then reads out all the pieces of paper she has received that day to all the students and staff before everyone leaves to go their lessons. There is also a chance for staff to give out any other messages in case they forgot to write a note or if they want to address the whole school. There was several assemblies where notes were written and given to the head girl about the fashion show, for example there was a reminder every assembly when there was a rehearsal after school and who needed to attend that day, as tech team did not need to attend every single day for example, so it was important and very convenient to let everyone involved know what was going on. As the textiles teacher at my school, Mrs Gilbert also gave out messages when it was the staffs turn to say any messages so again this could be more about the rehearsal itself or any other messages such as getting the organisers to make sure to tell the hair and makeup team what hair and makeup they want the models to have. If there was not an assembly on that specific day and a message needed to be communicated, it was also our responsibility to print out the messages and place the message into each forms' form folder so that the form captain could read the message out to their form in the morning during their form time. Another key way of getting messages across about the fashion show that we used especially was email. There was a lot of emails sent out from us to other organisers, to Mrs Gilbert herself and other participants. I also sent out messages on social media sites to my models, as did many other designers as this way the models would reply quicker or see your messages quicker than if I sent them an email which they only checked during school hours. This was an effective way to communicate with all the other participants when it was out of school hours.

Resources:

When it came to dealing with resources, it was fairly easy to manage everything needed as that was something that I looked very closely at under the "Implementing" section of my Gold Arts portfolio. Once again, the main resources we needed were the actual place we could hold the event, which we booked the school theatre for, the models, tech team, hair and makeup team, designers and any other participants needed to run the show were very crucial aspects for the show. This was easy enough to get as many messages in assemblies and form times were given to encourage people to sign up to this. The rest of the resources we mainly needed were the technology, which was already available through the school lending it to us, the food and drinks were also needed. This would have to be bought and budgeted by the team which is something we had to manage which I have already explained previously.

Challenges:

When dealing with challenges and bumps in the road, it was very important to realise that there was always a solution to whatever the problem was. There was always Mrs Gilbert to ask as the main person in charge of the fashion show and also as being the main qualified member of staff involved, which we could ask if we needed help or her input with something. As the fashion show committee, it was also very important to discuss with the team if there was a challenge and how to find the appropriate solution for it. The main challenge we had was on the day there were about two people who were meant to be modelling who were off really sick for that entire week, which was an issue as the models were a crucial aspect on the day of the show. So there was now two outfits which were tailor made for their size which now had no model to actually wear it. The solution we found for this problem, was that we found two other people with a very similar sizes to those models off sick so that they could step in and model instead. It was just the issue of finding models willing and that would fit into those two outfits, along with learning the whole choreography and making arrangements with home and parents on how they were getting home later on and who was coming to watch etc. The other challenge was trying to order the pizzas as it was difficult to pick out which site to order from that was; of a really good quality, was reliable so we knew that we could trust that everything would come in time and of a good quality, along with which had the best price and reviews accordingly. We figured which site to use after quite a bit of research into the local places to the school as if anything went wrong, we could send someone and delegate the task of running down the street (if we chose a local restaurant) and picking up everyones orders, if worst came to worst. In the end we chose to go with Pizza Hut as it was local, was a name brand that is known to be reliable and is of as best quality that fast food can possible get. Another main challenge we faced was turning down lots of models who really wanted to do it but there was just not enough spaces for every single one who came to the casting to actually use, so it was a big challenge to tell those who didn't get the role that they didn't make it. There was definitely a lot of disappointed people but we turned it around to say that they would probably get it next year and that they could volunteer on to the hair and makeup team, or as a runner, or even on the tech team. Another challenge was designers not making the deadlines set, for example if videos were handed in late or the blurbs for the catwalks handed in late. This caused a delay on the time scale and delayed the tech team from actually seeing the videos and seeing what lighting goes best with it and getting on with their duties and roles. With the blurbs delayed having received some late, it caused the hosts of the show to delay writing and learning their scripts till they have received everyones blurb. This was quickly fixed by chasing up those designers with emails and at school to see why their videos or blurbs were late and what the next steps were. Those designers that handed it in late, were mainly due to technical issues when uploading as the videos could not upload as the file was too big, so to fix this, they airdropped the video so that there was a record on the school system so that the tech team could easily find it and open it. The last main challenge that we faced as a whole was that it did not look like enough tickets were being sold. Early in the morning on the day before the fashion show event, I went to ask how many tickets had been sold and there was only about a hundred tickets sold which is about half of what we were expected especially in terms of budgeting around this. However there was a massive turn around and during the day there were about sixty more tickets purchased and late comers on the night were able to purchase tickets at the door, so it was a very good turn around in the end and all the seats were completely full.

Ongoing Feedback:

To collect feedback of how people thought the project was going (planning/rehearsals etc) and how they thought my leadership abilities were during this process, I made a questionnaire on Surveymonkey.com, to see how I could actually improve for the next rehearsal or for the next meeting. It was instant feedback and I used an online questionnaire so people could feel like they could be 100% honest as it was completely anonymous. This would mean that I could try to improve with their feedback even during the process of planning and organising.

I created the online questionnaire early on in the beginning of the project and after a meeting or rehearsal, I asked those who I had an encounter with to answer my questionnaire to see how I was doing and what I could improve for the next meeting etc. I made a short questionnaire of about six questions in total, five of which were rating out of five stars and one had a comment box. The idea was for it to be a quick, short questionnaire so that people could answer it really quickly and motivate them to spend about two minutes doing me a favour of answering. If this questionnaire was longer, I truly believe that I would not have received as many responses as I did. These questions were mainly based around how I was doing in a position of leadership and about my leadership skills, this was to show me what I needed to work on and what other people actually thought of how I was doing. There was also a question on how people viewed the project as overall and their ideas on input on it. Below I have added some of the responses that I received from my questionnaire and I have then added my own thoughts on the feedback and how I moved on from there. I titled this survey money questionnaire; Ongoing project and leadership feedback survey as I wanted to differentiate what stage this survey monkey was as I knew that I was going to make another survey after the fashion show was over to get everyones responses and feedback to see what worked and didn't work so well. The link to my survey: https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/SFXRF6X.

The questions which I chose to incorporate in my questionnaire are as follows:

1. Out of 5 stars, please rate my communication skills based on any meetings/emails/rehearsals or any other encounters related with the fashion show that we have had. If not 5 stars, please let me know what I could do to improve for the next time.

2. Out of 5 stars again, could you please rate the level of my organisation skills that you could observe from any meetings or rehearsals etc. If not 5 stars, do you have any suggestions on what could be improved?

3. Out of 5 stars again, what would you rate my level of motivation to other team members and participants in the fashion show? If not 5 stars, how could I be more motivational or inspirational to other participants and team members in your opinion?

4. Out of 5 stars again, could you rate my teamwork skills as a whole, whether it be when listening to other peoples ideas or completing my side of the work. If not 5 stars, could you please explain what I could do next time to improve.

5. Overall, how would you rate my leadership skills, whether in rehearsals or during fashion show society club? If not 5 stars, what could be improved next time in your opinion?

6. Overall, how do you think that the fashion show planning and organising is going and how the project is going as a whole?

Below are screenshots of the average ratings out of five stars to the first five questions.

For the first question regarding my communication skills, I got an average of about four stars in total, which I am very pleased with. I received mostly five stars but I did receive four stars too from some people so the average went down to four stars. However I did receive a few comments from those that did give me four stars on what I could do to improve. I added about ten quotations directly copied from the answers and suggestions I received from participants from the fashion show that replied. I did receive around the twenty mark of replies but I thought it was more beneficial to pick through ten of them and display as some of them were quite repeated points so it was helpful to read through these comments and notice and pick out what other people thought of my leadership skills.

"I think listening to other peoples suggestions a bit more and incorporating those ideas more."

"Maybe suggest more ideas?"

"You do listen to everyone but maybe add the ideas you've listened about."

"I think you do a really great job on emailing everyone and keeping everyone on the right track but there is always a chance to improve."

"I think sometimes when you are explaining ideas, you don't always go about explaining them in the most clearest way, so maybe try think of ways when explaining something in a short easier way."

"I think maybe raise your voice when there is group rehearsals as people do make noise and talk and it is sometimes hard to hear when people sitting behind me are whispering."

"I think your ideas are great but maybe also really more on other peoples ideas."

"I like how you are really friendly to all of us in fashion show society but maybe talk a bit less when we know what we are doing. Don't get me wrong I think you are lovely and so helpful, but there is not a lot of time to work so sometimes it can be a bit distracting, but I only speak for myself I don't know if it is distracting for anyone else."

"Suggest ideas in a more straightforward way."

"Hi! I'm from fashion show club and I just think that you could talk more to me but other than that I have nothing else to suggest."

Looking at these quotations, I can definitely see what I need to work on more. I can definitely tell that I need to be more clearer with my ideas, so to try do this, I think that I will plan my idea more before the meeting and see what the shortest way of explaining it will be so that when there's the next meeting, it can be clearer for everyone as that was the main point I got. Incorporating more peoples ideas was another comment that I received a few times, so I think that I will actively ask everyone for their own opinions, ideas and thoughts and make sure to incorporate all of them or as many as possible. I think the last point that I am going to try to improve on is to talk to everyone equally at fashion show society club, which I did think I did but the feedback suggests that I spent a bit too long with some and too little with others, so the next fashion show society club meetings, I will try to be more equal with who I spend time with. This is something I was not aware of myself so it was very helpful to hear this feedback.

I received a full five stars for my organisation skills so there was no comments left on what I could do to improve this aspect of my leadership. I know that I still have to be consistent with my organisation skills and to not be too confident with this now that everyone has rated five stars. I have to keep working hard at organising so that people still think that there is a constant five star of organising throughout the whole project.

For motivational skills, I received an average of four stars, which again I am very pleased with but I really do want to improve and will try to take onboard all the comments I received as a whole. The majority of votes were a four but some were a five star but it rounded to about four stars in total. The main comments I received were about how I spent too long focusing on motivation or not enough, which really makes it harder to see if people want me to continue trying to motivate them in the way that I am currently or if I am being almost "too" motivating and encouraging and spend too long on that. I added some comments of direct quotes that I received below to show what the majority of comments consisted of and so I had a record of what I could try to do to improve from the feedback.

"Really motivating girl but some people need it more than others."

"Have more of those encouraging little talks with us."

"Pick out certain people to motivate more."

"Find it really helpful but there are times when it is better to just leave it in a sense?"

"I really struggle with modelling and I really find the mini speeches helpful so maybe you could do a one on one with me. I'm sure you can tell who I am."

"Maybe less motivational chats."

"Spend more time on rehearsing."

"I deffo think to have more of those talks I really find them beneficial."

"Me and my friends really like when you try to encourage us and make us feel good about our modelling skills."

"In fashion show club, we aren't really that stressed about finishing the work, so maybe don't encourage us as much because we know that we can do it."

I think that these comments are 50-50 so some people want me to be more motivational and encouraging, whereas the other sort of half of participants want less of my encouragement. I can definitely see from this that in fashion show society club I should focus less on encouragements and more on helping out when making. I also can see from these comments that a few people think that there are certain individuals who are struggling with the modelling side and they should receive more help instead of them. Now this is harder to do as I do not want to make anyone feel targeted and ask them to stay behind. The last thing I want to do is make someone who is already insecure about their modelling, feel even worse about it. However it is noticeable who is more confident and who is less confident so I do know which individuals need more help. I was trying to give everyone the same level of support to make it fair, but I do think that maybe even the participants know that I should spend more time and energy on those certain people who need more help. In the next rehearsal with the models, I will try to specifically try to help those who are less confident to try feel more confident.

For teamwork skills in general, I received an average of four stars, however the majority of ratings I did receive were five stars but there were a few four stars which did bring the average to four stars. The majority of comments that I received on this question was again about listening to everyone but apart from that, it looked like my team work skills were relatively good. I am glad that I did this survey so that I knew exactly what I needed to work on and what to do about it from the direct feedback from everyone involved who answered my survey. Below are some of the comments I got in regards to this question and what to improve on, along with what I am lacking in.

"Really good team player and does work on time every time. Maybe you could check in with how everyone else is doing with the work sometimes."

"Listen to other peoples suggestions more like I mentioned before in this quiz."

"Get everyone involved."

"Everything can be improved slightly but you are doing very well."

"Ask for everyones thought when you explain a new idea."

"Sometimes a few peoples ideas clash, maybe try break it up a bit. I know you did that that one time but there was another occasion when those two didn't see eye to eye and you could have tried to resolve it?"

"Negotiating what ideas to use could improve."

"Listen more."

"I think when we have group decision making, maybe listen a bit more to everyones ideas but that's the only relatively bad thing I can think about."

"Add more ideas in."

Overall, there was quite a mix of what different participants thought on my teamwork skills. In a generalisation, they were all relatively good but I do see that a few people think that I should listen a bit more and involve every single person a bit more. I find this a bit challenging sometimes because the committee has such different people in it who don't usually mix so sometimes there can be someone who doesn't really want to get involved, so I try to make up for it. I do know now that people just think that I should just maybe try to get these individuals more involved, so that is what I will try to do for the next time.

5. Overall, how would you rate my leadership skills, whether in rehearsals or during fashion show society club? If not 5 stars, what could be improved next time in your opinion?

Overall I got a mixture of both five and four stars but it did round down to about four stars. Most of the comments I did receive on what I could do to improve were mostly the same as I have received before as this question asked about my leadership in broader terms whereas the other questions covered more specifics of my leadership skills. This question was mainly to see how all the participants felt about my leadership qualities as a whole and in general. Most of the messages of the comments were kind of repeated and reiterated in this question so for that reason, I will add fewer quotes of comments that I have received for this question as it is quite repetitive and from the feedback, I can see what I need to work on more. I have added about five comments below which I received for this question.

"Be more harsh and stricter so that everyone does what they are meant to do."

"Involve everyone in the group."

"Listen more to everyone."

"Talk louder when there is a large group of us."

"Get everyone to join in and participate more in the meetings."

Most of these comments again as mentioned before were about actively listening more to every single participant. So I definitely know to do that next meeting or rehearsal and to get everyones ideas in the mix even more. Another key point that I received a couple of times was to get everyone to actively take part in things like the meetings and rehearsals but it is hard to motivate those people who really don't want to input but I do try to encourage these people and remind them that this is their choice of being there and they did volunteer and sign up to do the fashion show. Again in these cases it is reminding them that they are a huge help to the whole fashion show in a larger picture and to get them motivated again. The first comment that says that I should be stricter with participants, I personally don't agree with. I do respect the comment made and I respect their opinion but personally I believe that people work best if they are in a friendly environment and that works if I am friendly with them and am encouraging. I personally don't think that it will be beneficial to participants if I take an angry or stressful approach at them.

6. Overall, how do you think that the fashion show planning and organising is going and how the project is going as a whole?

Again this question was quite vague as I really just wanted to know anything about what people thought about the fashion show planning stage and to really see how people interpreted this question and what they picked out that particularly stood out to them about the whole process of the project. Below are about ten quotations that I have picked so that there is a bit of variety in terms of the responses.

"It seems really organised."

"It looks like it is a well planned event and that it will run smoothly on the night."

"Looks like a lot of work from the committee but well done with organising the walks."

"Appears very stressful but you all look so calm."

"The fashion show is such an amazing experience and I love modelling! Never done it before but it is a lot of fun."

"Working with fashion show club, it helps a lot and thanks for helping plan the rehearsals with us."

"I don't really know what is going on with the organising as I am part of the tech team but it seems in order."

"Well done with everything so far!"

"Seems like a lot of work but it all seems like it is doing good."

"Deadlines which have been planned are a bit tight especially the blurb and video hand in deadlines but I do understand that it holds everyone up on the other side if they are delayed more than those dates."

Overall with this feedback I received looking at the whole questionnaire, it was very helpful to see what participants think I can improve on and what they believe can be changed. It is now easier for me to pin point what I need to do next in regards in my leadership role and how to be better in the role. This has been a very useful experience in finding out what everyone thinks works well and what could be improved. Moving on with the project I will keep this all in mind.

Details of how the project will be shown publicly:

The project will be shown publicly at the fashion show event as I have mentioned before. The plan is to show this fashion show publicly at the event. The show will start at 7pm and then end at around 8:30pm where the audience members will then be invited to have drinks and nibbles in the Wollenstencraft Room (which is a fairly large room/hall) in the school, where there will be enough space for all the guest members and participants to relax and eat. Most of the details of how the project will be shown publicly, I have mentioned before in my project plan in the planning section, so if you are interested in finding more about that, then head over to the planning section.

Your responsibilities in relation to the public showing/sharing:

As mentioned before, most of these details are on the planning section, but I will briefly summarise the answer to this question. I am responsible for organising my own models for my own walk, along with other models and more of the planning section. I will be doing more behind the scenes work leading up to the show, so helping out with budgeting and coming up with ideas for example. Along with helping out at rehearsals, and also helping out younger students make their own outfits to contribute to the fashion show event showing.

Details on how you have organised people and resources:

I have helped organise in meetings and I have also helped organise in the Fashion Show Society club weekly. I have had to voice my opinions and thoughts on other peoples ideas and also voice some of my own. In terms of resources, I have helped organise the budget; which entails from the food to the flowers on the night, and also helped assist setting up the theatre in preparation for rehearsals.

Delivery of the public showing:

I have added pictures and footage from the event, which is on the photo gallery section of my website under the unit two section. Here you will be able to see the full extent of the fashion show event from videos from the catwalks themselves, to the photoshoots of each catwalk, to behind the scenes and the after gathering. Overall, I thought that the event was a massive hit and as I left the Theatre, I received so many compliments on the show along with on my personal collection. If anything could be improved, I would suggest that perhaps having a bigger budget for the flowers, to show the art department how grateful we are for all their constant work in helping and inspiring the girls, especially leading up to the fashion show event.

Reflection on where and how I was developing and applying my leadership skills while managing the event:

On the actual night of the event, I had to help make sure that everyones collections were photographed and it was quite difficult to get all the members of one collection all together in the same place to get them to come to one of the art rooms to take the photographs in the photoshoots. There were set rooms where catwalks were allocated to go to, and this was between three rooms, but of course a model or designer could have been in one of the toilets in school or downstairs at the very bottom of the school having dinner, so that is where it was more complicated to find people, especially as there was a limited amount of time. However there were runners that their jobs were to find models or designers and they had headsets to communicate to other runners, next time I think there should be more as its was still quite difficult to find these runners in the first place, so I definitely think that for next time, they should have allocated rooms each and a few more of them so that everything runs smoothly in preparation to the show and on the night of the show. I was applying some of my leadership skills on the night of the event, and particularly using my organisation skills to find the models so that they could have their photos taken. After a certain time, the photographers would not take any photos as they would have to go to set up their equipment in the theatre to photograph and film the real event. This certain time was about 6:30pm and this was also about the time that models and designers had to make their way to one of the rooms near the theatre to wait for the event to start and so that the runners could easily find all of us to start the show. I also developed my communication skills and confidence when speaking to a large amount of people, when trying to get everyone to go to their photoshoots before the show. This was definitely the most stressful and nerve wracking part as it was hard to see who was yet to be photographed, but in the end everyone managed to be photographed, both in their collections and with a pair/group/individual. I also applied my organisation skills on the night, when I had to tell all the models and designers to go outside for the grand finale. After individual walks had been done, these models and designers had to make their way to the top of theatre area to sit down and watch and support the rest of the show. However there was a certain time that we all had to make our way down for the grand finale of the show and to wait and organise what side to get on to the stage from while waiting outside. After the second to last catwalk happened, and the audience was clapping and cheering, I stood up and motioned for everyone to get up and leave the theatre. This meant that I had to be organised to know when to evacuate the top area so that the grand finale would be on time.

Feedback from participants and audience members after event:

Again, I made an online questionnaire on SurveyMonkey.com, to collect feedback from participants and audience members alike, to find out what they thought of the event as a whole, and what they thought could be improved, among other questions. As the questions and feedback that I wanted to find out from both participants and audience members was different, I created two different questionnaires for each section. Participants had the knowledge of what happened in rehearsals, behind the scenes and what it was like in preparation for the actual night of the show. However, the audience members only saw the final result, so both participants and audience members had very different experiences, so I wanted feedback on both sides.

The questionnaire for the participants was slightly longer than that of the audience members, as the participants had nine questions to answer and the audience members only had five questions. This was mainly to do with the participants being a lot more involved with the show obviously so there was more sections that I wanted their feedback on.

I wanted to keep this survey brief so as to not to take up a lot of the models and designers, and everyone else involved's time. Everyone was absolutely knackered after the night of the show, so I wanted to make the survey as easy to do and as less time consuming to do so that more people would be more likely to do it. The questions I asked are as follows:
1. How do you think that the Fashion Show went this year?

2. What was your favourite part of the event?

3. How do you think the organisation of the planning of the show went?

4. What do you think could have been improved (in terms of planning and the execution on the night)?

5. What do you think was the most organised part out of the fashion show?

6. Overall could you rate my leadership skills (whether on my communication or on my organising and planning)? 1star being really poor, 2 stars being could have been improved, 3 stars being average, 4 stars being good and 5 stars being excellent. I also asked follow up question; if you did not think I was five stars, how could it have been improved in your opinion?

7. As a participant, what do you think worked well in preparation for the show?

8. As a participant, what do you think could have been improved in preparation for the show?

9. Last question, overall how would you rate your experience as a participant on a whole (looking back at rehearsals/meetings/experience on the night etc) 1 star being bad, 2 stars being could have been better, 3 stars being average, 4 stars being enjoyed it and 5 stars being really loved participating. Again I asked a follow up question; if your answer was not five stars, could you let me know how it could have been improved below.

The link for the participant focused survey questionnaire is: https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/RVH5XW8. I will also add screenshots of the questions below to how they are presented on the site. In addition to this, I will also add a number of answers from participants below and a brief summary of all the feedback I received.

These screenshots above are from each individual question on the online survey participants, I will add a few of the responses down below of the feedback to get a range of answers so that I know what worked well and what could have been improved. There were about over thirty participants who answered this questionnaire in total, so I will add a few of the responses, ranging from the best to the average answer to the most critical responses, as it will be more beneficial and easier to see and analyse the responses rather than having every single response up.

Answers for the Feedback from the Fashion 2019 (Participants Edition) questionnaire:

1. How do you think that the Fashion Show went this year?

"It continues to evolve every year."

"This is my first year ever being part of it and I really thought it went better than I thought it would be when I signed up. I didn't realise how big the event was considered in school till the week before when the stage was starting to get set up."

"I've done it every year since year 8 and I am in year 12 right now and I always really enjoy it. Can't wait for next year!"

"Just joined BHS this year in year 7 and I really liked being a model."

"Want to do a bigger role next year but for my first year, I really liked being a runner."

2. What was your favourite part of the event?

"When I was walking down the stage and I could see my parents and younger brother in the audience cheering me on."

"The photoshoot definitely!!!!"

"Being part of tech because I want to work in computing when I'm older."

"I liked being part of fashion society as it felt like a family at the end and everyone was really supportive of everyone else."

"I preferred the event itself when it was happening but it was really nerve wracking."

3. How do you think the organisation of the planning of the show went?

"I wasn't involved with organising so I can't say specifically but from what I could see, the whole event ran quite smoothly."

"Was part of meetings and I think everyone's voices got heard which was really good."

"I think it was really organised everyone knew what they were doing basically."

"Can't say from experience as it is my first time but everything seemed organised."

"Bit hectic towards the end especially on the night of the fashion show and I think the finale bit could have been rehearsed more as I wasn't sure when my cue was."

4. What do you think could have been improved (in terms of planning and the execution on the night)?

"I think that the final part could have been rehearsed more because we only rehearsed it a few times."

"More pizza ordered!"

"As I said before, the finale as I did not know when my cue was to come on stage."

"I think we could have had more meetings in prep for the show."

"Making the videos and submitting was a really tight turn around."

5. What do you think was the most organised part out of the fashion show?

"Everyones choreos as everyone knew what to do."

"The videos! They were all so good and made in time before the rehearsals!"

"The show itself like when we were showing the clothes instead of the after event as my parents did not really know where the room was as they haven't really visited the new school before and got a tour of it."

"All of it I thought it was all really organised."

"Tech team because they knew all the lighting cues and what to do."

I received an average of four and a half stars from all the participants who answered this survey on rating my leadership skills. So this rating was halfway between good and excellent. Overall I was really happy with the responses on this question as most of the ratings were really high from a 5 star which I labelled excellent, and a 4 star which I labelled good. However there was one response that was a three star rating and the comment was that: "I think maybe you could have engaged with every single participant more, including us in the technician team as we could have been directed a bit more. Just being harsh, but this is my honest opinion." That was probably the harshest rating but I totally agree with the comment, I definitely focused more on the designers and models rather than the technician team for example, as to me I thought that they knew what they were doing and were given requests from each catwalk on the lighting and given the music and videos to play. From this feedback, I have learnt that I need to spend more time with each section as a whole and just finding the balance between every section.

7. As a participant, what do you think worked well in preparation for the show?

"Having so many rehearsals."

"Getting so much time to get ready before the show."

"I think we got a lot of handouts and letters and messages which was good to remind we when everything was happening."

"Doing extra rehearsals if we were unsure on the walks themselves."

"I think the meetings were really helpful as well as emailing info to each other."

8. As a participant, what do you think could have been improved in preparation for the show?

"Practising the final bit more."

"I think we should have done more rehearsals."

"More meetings!"

"Having rehearsals start sooner instead of a few days before the show."

"I think we could been more prepared by doing more rehearsals but some people told me they wanted less but I really think more next time."

Again, much like the other rating question, I received an average of four and a half stars again, which was halfway between to what I labelled; "enjoyed it" and "really loved participating". So I thought this was really good, the lowest rating I received was four stars which was "enjoyed it" which shows that out of all the participants who answered, they all enjoyed it and valued the experience. I received a lot of five stars on this question on how they rated their experience as a participant as a whole, but of those who gave four stars, the additional comments they added on why they did not give it a five were as follows: (again I will only add a select few to get the overall sense of the answers and feedback added):

"There was enough pizzas for everyone but some people got more than others so I think making sure everyone gets the same amount."

"Tickets for our parents or friends could have been cheaper."

"More rehearsals as everything was a bit last minute, but I really enjoyed being included and I enjoy getting involved more each year."

The answers above (for question 9) are probably the harshest I received and I do accept all these responses but I do think that the tickets were priced really reasonably, and are always priced at around the same prices every year anyways. The price is due to the budget and trying to cover the costs whilst also getting a profit for both the Art Department resources and also the Sixth Form Ball. There was also a mix of responses regarding the rehearsals, some responses said more (such as the one above) and a lot said less, so again it really just is about personal preference, so I think we had a fair amount of rehearsals overall.

In general, looking back at the responses, I think that all the feedback was really fair and I take it all on board. I am most pleased with the rating I got from my leadership skills as I really did try to develop my skills overall in this project. I think that there is a range of responses so some said more rehearsals for example and others said less, so again as I have said before, it is really hard to find the balance on making everyone happy and pleasing everyone when there is quite a large number of people involved.

The link for the audience member focused survey questionnaire is: https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/R7XTQYL. Again, I will also add screenshots of the questions below to show how they are presented on the site, along with some of the answers from audience members themselves.

The questions for this audience questionnaire are as follows:

1. Overall, out of five stars how would you rate the event as a whole? (from the show to the after gathering)?

2. How good did you think the organisation of the show was? There was also a follow up question; if your answer was not five stars, how would you suggest it could have been improved in your opinion?

3. What was your favourite part of the whole event?

4. What was your least favourite part of the event?

5. What could have been improved in your opinion?

Asking audience members to fill out the questionnaire and actually receiving answers and feedback from audience members was a lot more difficult compared to getting feedback from participants. This was mainly due to the fact that there was no set guest list so I didn't know who attended the event and who to ask and send the questionnaire to. I asked several people who were students watching as audience members and then asked some students if they could send their parents or family the link to the questionnaire to answer it, and overall I got just about twenty responses back and who filled out the questionnaire survey. So again I will add a few direct quotes from what some audience members wrote down in the survey so that it is easier to analyse and compare feedback responses. The answers are as follows:

1. Overall, out of five stars how would you rate the event as a whole? (from the show to the after gathering)?

Overall for this question, there was a full five stars given, which shows that all the audience members, or at least those who answered the questionnaire, all thoroughly enjoyed themselves, which was really pleasing to see. There were no other scores aside from five stars given, which shows that the audience members as a whole enjoy the event and the after gathering.

2. How good did you think the organisation of the show was? There was also a follow up question; if your answer was not five stars, how would you suggest it could have been improved in your opinion?

There was a full five star rating given once again on this question, which shows that from an audience members point of the view, they thought the event ran smoothly and was well put on. And even though audience members who did this questionnaire survey did as a whole rate five stars for this question consecutively, some also did write a small comment in the comment box provided which I gave a follow up question title in it so that it was clear what the purpose of that specific comment box was so; if your answer was not five stars how would you suggest it could have been improved in your opinion? However these comments were really helpful and motivating especially after all the work that was put into making and organising the show, and it was so nice for audience members to leave me little comments when they did even have to. One of the comments was: "The fashion show ran so smoothly and I thoroughly enjoyed my experience as part of the audience. I really liked seeing my daughter get involved, especially considering that this is her first year at Blackheath High after moving schools." Another comment was: "I really liked going and supporting my friends and there was no hitches! Well done to all of you!"

3. What was your favourite part of the whole event?

For this question, I received a few comments that were again so motivating and uplifting after all the amount of work put into it. The answers were as follows:

"Definitely seeing my two daughters on the stage! So proud!"

"I totally enjoyed seeing the diversity in the clothing made by the girls."

"It was so interesting to see it all come together as my daughter was working on making the collection at home."

"Watching and supporting my friends who walked and modelled on stage."

"Watching the show!"

4. What was your least favourite part of the event?

"Witnessing the stress that my daughter was under when preparing for the show. It was all worth it in the end!"

"Nothing, I can't name any."

"Being sat in the last row and not being able to see all the clothes up close."

"None."

"I came as an audience member to support my friends and I auditioned to be a model but I did not get chosen but I did get offered to be a runner, on tech or on hair and makeup, but I just wanted to be a model. So my least favourite part was not getting picked but I will try again next year."

5. What could have been improved in your opinion?

"There could have been more vegetarian food in the event after the show."

"More non alcoholic options for the girls after the show."

"The girls could have walked on stage longer so that we could all appreciate the clothes more."

"Definitely more Prosecco!"

"I have several food intolerances, so maybe more allergen friendly food at the after show?"

Project Report:

What happened on the project?
Myself, along with other students organised a very successful fashion show event to be shown to a large amount of audience members of around 200 people. This consisted of several catwalks from students who designed and made their own collections, performances from students which consisted of displaying music and videography, alongside the two main hosts hosting the event and a small after "party" gathering at the end of the night after the public showing of the event. The evening went according to the original plan; so the event started off with a small reception to then audience members took their seats and then the show started which was hosted by both Poppy and Olivia. Then the catwalks commenced and there were small intervals in between every few catwalks where there was a musical performance by Ellie and a video shot by Hana shown. After the catwalks and performances were done, then the small speeches for congratulations were made by the hosts and the head teacher to thank the organising team and also Mrs Gilbert for working so hard alongside everyone and helping everyone to be able to make the show such a success.

What was produced?
An event which exhibited the work of students' textiles capabilities in the school and musical/videography talents. There were collections produced from about 7 different students in total, alongside the two year 11 classes and fashion show society. There were a diverse range of art forms shown in the event but these mainly focused on the textiles aspect, naturally due to the nature of fashion shows.The youngest student who contributed their own work to the event was in year 7 (11 years old) and then the oldest was in final year of ALevels (18 years old) so there was a range of ages between the students working alongside each other in this large scale project.There were very different types of clothing made for the exhibition so it made a great show as everyone made something very unique and different to one another. There was also a running theme of (De)Construction so every designer took this in a completely different way and moulded their ideas to fit this title.

What did you enjoy the most and why?
Definitely seeing the whole event come together as a whole after all the work that was put in; designing, making, rehearsals, planning. I also enjoyed getting to know other students who I don't usually see or talk to around school, so it was very nice to meet and assist other students who are in different year groups or who have even just joined the school. I also enjoyed working as a team and how everyones roles were crucial in getting the event to such a success as it was on the night. I really liked designing and making my own collection in contribution for the showing part of the fashion show, aside from the planning and organising.

What was the most challenging thing and why?
Actually just starting with the actual planning because it was hard to know where to actually start. It was also hard to get everyone to be quiet and to listen when rehearsals had to start as students tended to come into the theatre usually about ten minutes early so naturally everyone was talking but when it came to the time that the rehearsals needed to start, it was really important to get everyones attention so that they knew what they needed to do and what was coming up. Also on the day of the event, two models were unable to come as they were really sick, so then two year 7 students were found who were the same size as the original model so that the clothes did not have to be altered last minute, and was less stressful on the designer. It was also challenging at first to speak and address such a big crowd during rehearsals and give orders on what was going to happen and what everyone needed to do.

How did the public event work?
The event was put on by the art department at the school but organised by some students at the school (me, Ana and Eve), so anyone was free to attend but had to buy a ticket beforehand ideally although there were the last few remaining tickets being sold at the door if anyone needed to get any last minute. Audience members ranged from family members to family friends to close friends of the students to other students and teachers. The public event involved catwalks, live music, a short film viewing, nibbles and drinks.

What have you learnt about leadership?
That when leading (especially a large group of other students) it is important to be very confident and to speak loudly and clearly. It is also so important to be able to communicate all your ideas in a simple manner so that your ideas are very clear to everyone and can easily be followed. I also learnt that teamwork is incredibly important during leadership and that even though you might be leading something in the way you believe is the best way, it is always crucial to be open to receive feedback to know what to improve on for the next time, this is why the online questionnaires that I made during the event planning was so crucial, as I instantly knew what to improve on.

What have you learnt about communication?
As I mentioned before, it was so important to communicate all my ideas in the simplest manner so that everyone understood and could follow through with these ideas and know what to do. I also built on the fact that communication is not just about talking, it is also about listening and is so important to do so and to see other peoples' perspectives on the same situation and to get more ideas as a result. It was also quite important to adapt my communication skills to different people depending on their age, as with the older students you could be slightly more harsh and tell them truthfully how it is and they would be able to handle, but with the lower years, they were (as a whole) very nervous and timid, so it was important to be more gentle with them.

What have you learnt about planning?
That it takes a whole team to organise such a large scale event and that no one individual could do it all alone, and that working in a team is so crucial in a project like this; during the planning stages especially to filter through all the ideas and combine the ideas. The plan we had in place did follow through with no major hiccups so the plan in our case did work out and the event was a success but we also had to consider what could go wrong and what our solutions would be if certain scenarios happened. Planning was so important as it seemed to motivate everyone for the end result and everyone knew what they were working towards and what needed to be done to end up with the best result possible that we all wanted; whether models or designers or anyone else involved.

What have you learnt about your art form?
That there is so much work done behind the scenes compared to what audience members just see on the catwalks. The planning behind fashion events takes an army and so much work is done that doesn't get seen, so next time I attended a fashion show, I will be more aware of this factor and be more grateful that a team of people have put so much work in to make that event possible. I also learnt more techniques when sewing my own collections, and that initial designs do not always follow through, as I changed my designs very often so that the ideas and collection would work aesthetically as a cohesive.

What would you do differently?
Looking at the feedback that I received, I could have perhaps organised more rehearsals, but it is difficult as some said that they felt that there should have been less rehearsals and others felt as though they wanted more, however, additional "support" catwalk rehearsals were also organised for any catwalks that were under performed or felt as if they needed the extra rehearsal time. I also learnt that with these events, it is better to have extra food and drink as opposed to not enough, so we could have ordered more food and drink, but we just did not want this all to go to waste, but there were a few comments regarding food and drink, so we should have ordered more just in case it was needed.