What Happens When Artists Step Into the Classroom

We’re nearing the end of a year-long project working alongside teachers in schools across the High Peak. Eight artists, from different creative disciplines, were paired with eight schools to explore how artistic practice and active learning can support teaching in the classroom.

Each school came to the table with a different question, it was then the artists and the teachers job to work together trying to answer those questions as the project developed. In our schools we asked teachers which lessons they found tricky to deliver, or what they wished they had more of in their teaching toolkit. Then came the fun bit: exploring how we could use our skills as theatre-makers to approach those questions and those lessons differently.

We also discovered that if we didn’t use the word “drama”, teachers were much more open to giving things a go! Sometimes a change of language can make all the difference.

There’s been some brilliant feedback along the way, but what I’ve particularly loved is that the learning hasn’t just been one way. Teachers, artists and children have all grown and learnt from each other. It’s been an absolute privilege to be part of it.

The photographer is stood behind all the children. An artist holds up a shadow puppet to a class of school children. They are all looking up at the shadow it has created

Realising Robyn

There’s something wonderful about creating a new story. We get lost in storylines, characters, locations and endless possibilities as we slowly begin to bring the world of Robyn and the Book Monster to life.

Finding time to be creative isn’t always easy. There’s always a funding bid to think about, an email to send or a workshop to design and deliver. Sometimes we have to deliberately shut out all that noise and give ourselves permission to just focus on the story.

And there are so many layers to storymaking. Questions to answer, characters to understand, subtext to explore and, ultimately, figuring out how to make an audience care about what happens.

Even after 26 years of making stories, we’re still learning new things. And that’s rather wonderful!

This is a poster for a theatre show. A child looks excitedly into an open book. Snowflakes swirl out of the book and a monster hangs onto the title of the production; Robyn and the book monster

Useful Stuff

Did you know there’s a little collection of useful stuff hiding away on our website?

You can listen to stories, discover teaching resources and find creative things to download and have a go at. If you enjoyed Here Be Dragons this summer, you can listen to the audio story again and download your very own Monster Mender Journal (just scroll to the bottom of the page).

And if you enjoy these newsletters and fancy reading a little more, have a rummage through News and Stories on our website. There are plenty of tales from the projects, people and places we’ve encountered along the way.

Two actors pretend to be monster menders. They are dressed up in hats, waistcoats and colourful trousers. They are holding an old fashioned leather suitcase that has the words Useful Stuff painted onto it.