I am Living, I am Growing
I am Living, I am Growing is a 6 – 8-week modular resource for schools and community groups which takes Kae Tempest’s poetry, and themes of mental health and wellbeing, as a starting point to support students to use music and creative writing as a positive outlet for self-expression.
I am Living, I am Growing was first delivered to schools in Essex through our Widening Access programme. Working with a range of young people, from GCSE Composition students to Year 7 Nurture Groups, this project gave secondary school-age students the tools to explore the links between music and mental health.
Why Kae Tempest?
Using Kae Tempest’s work as a starting point, this project introduces young people to an artist whose personal mental health journey highlights the benefits of creative expression. Tempest has openly shared their experiences with mental health challenges including depression, panic disorder, and gender dysphoria, and has expressed a desire to help others learn how to communicate their emotions. Tempest’s varied forms of expression, both sonically and lyrically, serve as inspiring examples of creative freedom, encouraging young people to explore diverse ways of articulating their own emotions.
“Thanking the beautiful deep down current in the earth for all the pain in my soul and the freak in my body because it means I am living, I am growing.”
How Can I Deliver this Project in my own School?
At the link below, you can find our I am Living, I am Growing resource pack which contains session plans for 6 – 8 weeks of content that can be delivered to your students. Exercises are structured to inspire creative writing and music making in response to Kae’s poetry, exploring themes of identity.
Here, you can also access our accompanying CPD videos developed by the NYJO musicians that launched our I am Living I am Growing project for the first time. These videos relate to specific exercises contained within the resource pack.
I like calm music ’cause it calms me down. When I do something bad it makes me feel down. Struggling to sleep and it puts me down. After I waste my energy it makes me feel down.
When I’m sad I talk to my friends, when I’m mad I normally scream. There’s so many things about me, and that’s what makes up me!
I am Living, I am Growing 2025 Project Participants
How Can NYJO Support Delivery of this Project in my School?
We would love to see, celebrate, and showcase anything that your students create in response to the exercises contained within our I am Living, I am Growing resource pack. Please share photos/videos/writing with us at [email protected]!
This project is totally deliverable in your school using only the resource pack and accompanying CPD videos linked above but, when we first launched the project in Essex, each school taking part received two visits from a NYJO quintet. The first visit was an opening performance designed to inspire young people through the links between music and positive self-expression. The second visit allowed students at each of the schools to perform the writing that they had created with live musicians for the first time!
The videos below show how these accompanying visits brought the project to life for the students involved – if you would like to discuss NYJO visiting your school to support with delivery of this project, you can get in touch with us anytime at [email protected].
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