Working with Shoofly Publishing

A new term is about to start next week and it always feels like the beginning of a New Year. This time it will also mean bringing together the results of  last years collaboration with Shoofly Publishing. We hope to publish the stories 'Bloodlines' which have been written by Anne Curtis with young teenagers in mind.  Over three terms Anne and I have taken the stories to middle schools in this region and tested their responses to the themes and the methods of bringing the stories to life. Naturally I chose drama, getting physical with the language and where possible taking the young people outside. Anne introduced them to the language and methods her particular craft of writing envokes and also a chance to handle artifacts.

'Hunter's Moon'  is a Gothic Horror story which made an instant  impression on the year 8 class

 Handling objects can inspire language..'.filigree, rustic, etched, decorative elegant'! it can also release  a language of feelings and emotions....'intruding into the past, a sense of tingling suspense'.....
all were words recorded  from comments  during class.
When combined with visualizing a scene from the Bloodlines story one young writer came up with...'I felt all happiness flood out of my body and replaced by fear  for my own life' ...strong and evocative language  suitable writing for suspense!





Getting physical with words can mean creating impressions of the shape of objects in an abstract way. This was is an impression of a  spiral staircase!

Sometimes the act of creating abstract shapes can focus consentration on the main themes of a story. This a door way suggests the idea of stepping  over a barrier into another world with its infered challenge....and a 'sense of tingling surpense...

The opportunity to dress up in character is a rare and allows the young pupils a way  to get  into the theme in a personal. Just putting a pile of  chosen cloths, blank masks and clothes associated with the period in the  centre of the  space unleased great excitement and consequent involvement in the story.

This was true for the boys as much as the girls.

We have proof of the value of this way of working in the quality of writing which came from some of these creative processes.

On the strength of this experiment the English department in one school has now included 'Gothic Horror' writing project in their curriculum plans for this year.

Forest School goes to the beach



Last week we took a year 2 class to the beach to bring  to life our

theme of 'sea voices' and 'pirates tales' . They arrived ready to go!

We are lucky to have a great coastline near to the city centre and within 20 minutes we had arrived at Tynemouth and  an empty beach.

The plan was to be able to 'actout' our pirate drama on the beach but first of all everyone needed a good explore and to collect 'sea treasures'.In order to be able to use these sea objects they had to ask permission from the sea with a message drawn in the sand. Meanwhile I started to create a spiral to store the found treasures (we had been making spiral poems in class and looking at spiral shells).

The young pirates took their treasures into the spiral to leave safe while they drew their pirates ships on the beach. There were no shortage of ideas and it was great to see such a variety of designs some small and perfect others using beach combing trophies.



 When it was time to return to School we took the treasures with us and I replicated the spiral in the forest school with the treasures in the centre ready to be retrieved. By now they represented more than sea trophies but whole stories. We finished the day telling each other 'salty tales' before burying the treasure in the forest ready for the next time.

 

The value of this way of developing stories from shared experiences can't be underestimated. Children live in a close relationship with nature and their sense of wonder brings to life the setting in a way they never forget. It is a real antidote to the complicated time restraints of the classroom. The end result is everyone has a good time even the teachers which they truly deserve after a busy year.

Story telling and the forest school

I have been delighted by the opportunity to bring together two

of my interests into the one project. By the title you will imagine forests in the wilds of Northumberland , but this one is in the heart of Newcastle and attached to a lucky primary school tucked away in a natural dean.
The school have been developing this great asset into a place for outside classes and that can mean anything from cooking (yes they have a proper brick oven) to literacy and language through nature.

Every Tuesday for  8 weeks  key stage 1 have been using story telling and drama techniques to bring to life their  curriculum.We have been  taking every opportunity to go into the forest school. It is in this setting that the children are most relaxed happy and ready to try something new.

Props can play a part in the themes particularly if it brings the children together in the pleasure of listening to each other tell stories. Over the next few weeks I hope to get them to be able to tell each other stories in the forest school using ideas from the natural world around them. As a method of learing it was  old even to the classical world of  Ancient Greece but a good idea is worth passing on.

Dancing in a garden

The particular garden in question is the spectacular Alnwick Garden and to be precise the pavillion of Alnwick Garden. Through the generous programme  run by the Alnwick Garden Trust I am able to keep a  group of dancers who are all over 50  meeting once a week. We have been going for over 15 years as a group originally at Alnwick Playhouse as 'Dance for Fun'. The name  has stuck although is not the best of names. All the women who come along on a Friday morning love dancing and the joy of the setting makes it quite unique. The floor of the pavilion is heated using  themal core heat and it is like an exquisite spa to lie down on at the end to relax. However it is not all about relaxing and we sometimes amaze visitors to the garden with the amount of fun we have getting into character for the dance. I must add at this point it is for our pleasure and wellbeing and we don't performe unless they just happen to be passing! Last year we enjoyed a sewing and craft theme called 'Thread  & Thrift' with the artist Mandy Pattullo inspiring the themes for the dance through the props, costumes and decor she and the sewing group created for us.To see more of her work http://threadandthrift.blogspot.com/  This was supported  by highlights rural touring scheme http://www.highlightsnorth.co.uk/ and last years Contemporary Craft tour.

The key to the contiued success of this group is a willingness to enter into the spirit of any dance or theme without taking ourselves too seriously and believe me this gives us lots of  freedom and pleasure.

In praise of teaching assistants

Motivation to be a Teaching Assistant must come from an inherent love of working with children. They come with life experience and often with skills and knowledge from an earlier career. I say this because I know it can't be the pay! Their role in our schools cannot be understated. Perhaps because they are so versatile and unburdened by the zealous demands of the National Curriculum they seem to be able to offer a common sense approach to dealing with children, understanding the need to look after the whole interests and where and why a child could be struggling (I do know good teachers do this as well and have much evidence to prove it).With this in mind it was my delight  and privilege to  run a PDT (professional development Training) in dance and drama for teaching assistants   in Northumberland last year. Northumberland Creative & Performing Arts Education Service (sorry for the long title but not sorry to give this great department a credit) initiated this 4 day course. It was spread through out  two terms which allowed us all a chance to try out ideas and notice developments. This was my chance to share ways to use story telling with dance and drama, music and props. We looked at Laban principles of movement , 'dancing the language' developing language through movement. In a nut shell all I believe in and share with children on a day to day basis. The bonus was the enthusiasm ,freedom of imagination and the fun we had sharing ideas. They got so much out of this study most of them went on to look at music in a similar course run by Jill Walker.  Now here is the rub! They want an advanced course this year to take their skills to a further level.  The appetite is there but sadly not the funds (a sign of of times). All is not lost we have one day on offer after half term which the schools are funding directly. So I shall report back and let you know. Watch this space to find out if the spark is still alive!

Discovering Tudor England

Last year I worked with a Primary School in South Shields to deliver  History through Drama. Year 5's topic was  The Tudors. The opportunity for drama work was great,  so we  organised  the  6 weeks work into three separate topics, one for each of the three classes in the year group. Each class had their unique contribution to a final performance day where all three classes could learn and be entertained by each other.

                                                      'Lavender, Candles & Chickens

Day in the life of  country folk''

One of the topics looked at rural Tudor life which meant an introduction to some unusual activities which told us about life in those time......a butcher pulling teeth, laundry using paddles,children being scare crows, hunting with a falcon. 

Then there was the interesting way they dealt with health hazards of the times. Taking the lid of Tudor life in this way makes every detail of research useful. We all know how fascinated children get about strange illnesses and even stranger cures so we devised a game of 'Doctor Doctor' with one half of the class acting out the demise while the others became the apothecaries and herbalists.

I introduced the idea of  the way disease could pass from town to country by with the character of Lady  Penelope's maid and news of 'the plague' in London

Rural life means also rural entertainment which lead to recreating market places and Tudor music and dance. Learning the 'Horses Brawl' ,an authentic dance of  times, gave the children a chance to see the other sides of peoples lives.

While this class  were concentrating on on rural life another took on the task of  life at sea on board one of Sir Drake's ships. This meant a lot of archetype characters and creating a dance drama of the historic 'Singing of The King of Spain's Beard'. This time the dance was a hornpipe and the song a sea shanty.

The third class took on high and low status life of London in Tudor times. Shakespeare's 'Globe' theatre was the natural setting to act out this theme where the division of class was so graphic.

We cast the characters of the  drama using a pack of cards which meant  boy's may get girls parts and visa versa which was true to the time and  the class loved all this playing with stereotypes. It particularly fitted the recreation of the melodrama of Pyramus and Thisbe from 'Midsummer's Nights Dream'

When you see young people getting so much out of learning this way it surely proves the necessity of making history into a physical story telling experience. This way you awaken an interest which could last beyond school years.

All this was made possible through the financial and administrative support of The Custom's House South Shields who I continue to be  grateful to.

                                                        

Discovering Victorian England

A recent  project which I enjoyed because of its success was finding ways to bring  history to life with 3 Year 6 classes in a South Shields Primary School. I was lucky to have a very supportive  school and enthusiastic classes to bring try out some ideas. It was funded by the Creative Partnership Programme (which we will soon have to say good bye to)

We used a whole range of drama exercises and investigative practice to involve the year group. Everyone in the class had a vital part to play and something new to learn about and bring to the class. The process covered a six week period  meeting one day a week. As there were three classes they took turns to have a day of drama with a different theme for each class so we ended up with a raft of knowledge which covered  the topics of  'Victorian Children' 'The life and times of Florence Nightingale' and 'Famous Victorian inventors'.

The  children really enjoyed presenting to each other sketches they had researched and written on the topics. We used everything we could think of from Victorian songs, adapting nursery rhymes and  becoming the characters from history but by far the post popular activity was 'Drama in the dark'  This we came upon almost by accident! Towards the end of the school day I set up a role play situation for the whole class when everyone became a character in a Victorian street with a space to imagine as their home and a role to play in the community (baker, maid, squire etc). They had a pile of cloths and some costumes to dress up their character then we created an imaginary day in the life of that Victorian scene. I don't like fluorescent lights so I turned them off and this then became 'Drama in the dark'. The rules were simple keeping in character  starting and stopping the role play together. It was a very natural way for children to learn through play and even the shy ones felt freer in the twilight drama exercise

                                       

It was summed up by a very earnest participant informing me  she used to to find History very boring and hard to understand " but this is different I will always love History now!"