Access to the arts and art education is a key priority for the Tricycle. It has one of the largest primary, secondary and community education programmes of any London theatre, designed to open up the arts to all young people. Last year more than 40,000 young people attended term-time and holiday workshops, films and plays and after-school clubs. The Tricycle’s Social Inclusion Programme provides a variety of activities both at the Tricycle and off-site in the local community.

It targets:

• Young refugees and asylum seekers
• Young people who have been, or are at risk of being excluded from mainstream education
• Young people living in areas with high levels of crime
• Young people experiencing economic deprivation
• Young Carers
• Young people from the Travelling community
• Young people Special Educational Needs
• Deaf children
• Older people over the age of 60

Innovative and exciting activities, informed by the creative and performing arts, stimulate alternative avenues of self-expression for the children and young people in the programme.

Launched in 2003, the programme was introduced to address the needs of the local community, Brent and surrounding boroughs. Social exclusion compromises a young person’s ability to control their own lives; it undermines their educational attainment and their personal and social development. Social exclusion compromises a young person’s ability to control their own lives; it undermines their educational attainment and their personal and social development and often results in low self-esteem and shyness, aggressive or harmful behaviour. The creative and performing arts offer a framework within which the problems of social exclusion and low educational attainment can be effectively addressed.