Children’s Mental Fitness Festival 8 February @ 1pm – 3pm Secondary Schools

The children can look forward to many activities & resources to help build their mental fitness including, dance, art, regulation training & spoken word workshops.

Meet your hosts Leanne Moden, Amy Matthews and Bridie Squires

Leanne Modern is a poet, performer, and educator, based in Nottingham. She has performed at WOMAD Festival, Sofar Sounds, and Bestival on the Isle of Wight, as well as the Fourth Wave Feminist Festival, Trinity College Cambridge, and the TEDx WOMEN event at UCL.

Leanne has also been a semi-finalist at the BBC Edinburgh Fringe Slam, and a national finalist at the Hammer and Tongue Poetry Slam, and the Camden Roundhouse Slam. In Summer 2019, she performed her first solo theatre show, Skip, Skip, Skip, at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and her second pamphlet of poetry, “Get Over Yourself’ was published with Burning Eye Books in July 2020.

As an educator, Leanne has facilitated writing workshops in a wide variety of settings including schools, care homes, hospitals, libraries and museums. She has worked as writer in residence at The National Justice Museum, the Museum of Cambridge and with Writing East Midlands, and has provided workshops for Creative North Nottingham, Arts Council England, the Nottingham Poetry Festival, the University of Nottingham, and Prima Vista Festival in Estonia. Leanne promotes spoken word education in primary schools, secondary schools, and further education colleges across the UK.

Amy Matthews from AJ’s School of Dance & Performing Arts wants to inspire our next generation of dancers/performers, you can never fail when you strive to be the best you can be but, only learn when we are provided with the foundation required to succeed.
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Amy Mathews founded AJ’s School of Dance back in 2004. She started running classes in village halls and schools before becoming the proud owner of AJ’s very own dance school based in Cartergate, Newark, Nottinghamshire.
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The school continues to grow each year with more talented students, classes, talented and inspiring teachers all made possible by the fantastic support we receive from our AJ’s community of parents and carers

Bridie Squires is a writer, producer and performance artist from Nottingham. Previously Editor of LeftLion Magazine, she was appointed as Nottingham Trent University’s first Writer in Residence in 2019 and founded Nottingham spoken-word collective, GOBS, in 2020.

A Mouthy Poets alumnus, Bridie has performed her poetry at London’s Southbank Centre, Karlsruhe’s Staatstheatre, and Nottingham Playhouse. Bridie was awarded funding from Arts Council England to create Casino Zero – her one-woman loop-station play based on her experiences as a croupier. She was commissioned by BBC Radio 4 for Mardy, a poem for Tongue and Talk: The Dialect Poets, in 2018, and she developed her audio drama Self-checkout for BBC Sounds in 2022. Bridie is currently working on a collection of past poetry works.

Children’s Mental Fitness Festival 8 February @ 10am – 12pm Primary Schools

The children can look forward to many activities & resources to help build their mental fitness including, dance, art, regulation training & spoken word workshops.

Meet your hosts Leanne Moden, Amy Matthews and Bridie Squires

Leanne Modern is a poet, performer, and educator, based in Nottingham. She has performed at WOMAD Festival, Sofar Sounds, and Bestival on the Isle of Wight, as well as the Fourth Wave Feminist Festival, Trinity College Cambridge, and the TEDx WOMEN event at UCL.

Leanne has also been a semi-finalist at the BBC Edinburgh Fringe Slam, and a national finalist at the Hammer and Tongue Poetry Slam, and the Camden Roundhouse Slam. In Summer 2019, she performed her first solo theatre show, Skip, Skip, Skip, at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and her second pamphlet of poetry, “Get Over Yourself’ was published with Burning Eye Books in July 2020.

As an educator, Leanne has facilitated writing workshops in a wide variety of settings including schools, care homes, hospitals, libraries and museums. She has worked as writer in residence at The National Justice Museum, the Museum of Cambridge and with Writing East Midlands, and has provided workshops for Creative North Nottingham, Arts Council England, the Nottingham Poetry Festival, the University of Nottingham, and Prima Vista Festival in Estonia. Leanne promotes spoken word education in primary schools, secondary schools, and further education colleges across the UK.

Amy Matthews from AJ’s School of Dance & Performing Arts wants to inspire our next generation of dancers/performers, you can never fail when you strive to be the best you can be but, only learn when we are provided with the foundation required to succeed.
​
Amy Mathews founded AJ’s School of Dance back in 2004. She started running classes in village halls and schools before becoming the proud owner of AJ’s very own dance school based in Cartergate, Newark, Nottinghamshire.
​
The school continues to grow each year with more talented students, classes, talented and inspiring teachers all made possible by the fantastic support we receive from our AJ’s community of parents and carers

Bridie Squires is a writer, producer and performance artist from Nottingham. Previously Editor of LeftLion Magazine, she was appointed as Nottingham Trent University’s first Writer in Residence in 2019 and founded Nottingham spoken-word collective, GOBS, in 2020.

A Mouthy Poets alumnus, Bridie has performed her poetry at London’s Southbank Centre, Karlsruhe’s Staatstheatre, and Nottingham Playhouse. Bridie was awarded funding from Arts Council England to create Casino Zero – her one-woman loop-station play based on her experiences as a croupier. She was commissioned by BBC Radio 4 for Mardy, a poem for Tongue and Talk: The Dialect Poets, in 2018, and she developed her audio drama Self-checkout for BBC Sounds in 2022. Bridie is currently working on a collection of past poetry works.