Past Project: Developing Arts-Based Learning Across the Primary Curriculum

(and Facilitating Professional Development in the Teaching of the Arts)

1. You and Your Work

StoryWorks Theatre Company grew out of the practice of DramaWorks – a curriculum drama-based initiative delivered over the academic year 2004 – 5, – and the partnership of the two practitioners who founded Probus Community Youth Theatre 6 years ago. StoryWorks has expanded the remit of DramaWorks over the past 18 months (largely thanks to the support afforded us by an ACESW award last year) to add and incorporate dance, music, puppet design, and visual art, as well as Literature.

In order to be considered to be a part of this new StoryWorks project, Primary Schools across Cornwall will be asked to put themselves forward, demonstrating each of the following criteria:

Having had little or no previous input from Creative Partnerships or any other externally funded arts projects
A genuine commitment to arts-based learning across the curriculum
An assurance that teachers will continue to develop their arts-based skills in between practitioners’ visits
As far as possible, a guarantee that the class teacher will be available for all 3 practitioner-led days

Also, schools will be selected according to geographical area to ensure a range of participation across the county (please see appendix A re marketing strategy to reach new schools). This was achieved for our last project with schools from all 6 Cornish Districts represented. The travelling involved was sometimes immense (hence the request this time for a van as the currently privately owned one has been done to death over the past 12 months!) but the demand across the County was clearly apparent – within 24 hours of sending out e-mails to all the Primaries in Cornwall we had had 35 positive replies for places – and more came in over the next couple of weeks. There is clearly a demand and a desire for our work (feedback and evaluation of “Putting Arts-Based Practice demonstrated that, as did the initial interest and demand) but the difficulty for schools is finding the money for it alongside all the other demands made on their often inadequate budgets.

‘Developing Arts-Based Learning’ will extend and develop the philosophy of our company’s education aims, taking on board suggestions made by the schools involved in our previous project. StoryWorks would like to be able to offer 25 Primary Schools 3 days of 2 artists per day over a single term for £300 (a sort of buy one get one free idea). There would be an initial planning session with school staff and StoryWorks practitioners to create a bespoke curriculum project targeting relevant areas of the National Curriculum to be explored through the arts (please see enclosed copy of our proposed workshop programme). Teachers working with StoryWorks practitioners would develop their own arts-based teaching and facilitating skills (CPD) and be expected and encouraged to continue to use these with their classes in between sessions. StoryWorks is committed to empowering teachers to teach through the arts; to change and develop their practice, and perhaps their thinking, behind how the curriculum might be delivered. It is felt that allowing time for teachers to develop their practice between sessions is vital whilst maintaining focus and coherency with the practitioner input. The potential for artist collaboration (and training support for new artists to be brought in to the company this year) suggested that facilitating 2 artists per day per school was a significant and innovative way forward. A year 3 teacher at one of our schools’ last year informed us last week that she was doing a similar curriculum-based story telling performance with her new class using all the ideas and skills she’d learnt from us. A number of schools have also told us of how our work with them has impacted on the planning and delivery of the curriculum this new school year.

StoryWorks has also been able to offer opportunities over the past project to students considering teaching or the delivery of workshops and/or performance as a possible career; giving them real professional experience in a mentored situation. In the first instance, as the first step to establishing StoryWorks’ ability to do this, Higher Education dance and performance students from Truro College/University of Plymouth worked alongside the artist-practitioners and class teachers to support and develop their own workshop practice skills as part of their level 2 study. 1 ex-HE student and one then current HE student also took part in the performances of “The Legend of Long-Legged Leon” in a paid capacity. Both these practices will continue with this new project as well as bringing in current artist-practitioners (one currently employed as a story-teller at The Eden Project, another a workshop leader with the St Ives based “Kids R Us”) and giving them training alongside one of the current StoryWorks Practitioners (a further reason for the facility to employ 2 practitioners per day per school to enable that training opportunity). In 2006 we had 2 Year 10 students from 2 different Cornish Secondary Schools on work-experience with us. One of those students performed a small cameo part in our Winter touring Show “The Ice Maiden” following that placement. We are registered with the Cornwall and I.O.S Work Experience Scheme run by the Cornwall Education Business Partnership and have Employers & Public Liability Insurance in order to do this.

2. Making it Happen

Following the overwhelming demand for places on our last project, we always felt that we would want to put in a bid for another project learning from and building and improving on the good and successful practice of the first project. We actually feel that our work is so unique and so necessary that we should really be receiving regular annual funding to have the security to expand and develop year on year!! (Maybe one day??). Clear expression of interest exists for project and this is without seeking uptake for it on a wider basis. If funding application was successful, all schools would be mailed and selection would occur on the basis mentioned earlier in this proposal. An evaluation of “Putting Arts-Based Practice” has already been sent to your office, a copy of it is available on our website. This indicates evidence of past experience of successfully managing a similar project. The Works: Dance and Theatre Cornwall (reference available on request) has always supported our work, and its Director is to be on our Board of Directors now we have become a Limited Company (as is the Headteacher of one of the schools we have now worked regularly with for the past 2 years – again a reference from him would be forthcoming on request: head@probus.conrwall.sch.uk ).

Schools will buy into 3 workshop days (2 practitioners per day, so effectively 6 days in 3) to be spaced out over the duration of one term with schools being asked to indicate preference on a first and second choice basis for one of the 3 terms in 2007/8. Teachers could be supported in their own use and development of arts-based teaching, when not with a StoryWorks practitioner, by a HE student (please see appendix B re recruitment plan for HE student involvement) who would be able to support the use of drama by the teacher and lead workshops in dance as required. Time between visits is essential to enable individual teachers to develop their own practice and look at ways to embed this practice into their day-to-day teaching practices. The CPD aspect of our work has been one of the main aspects schools involved previously with us seem to really value. One school has us back for 3 days this term working with the same classes as last year but with their new teachers as the Head felt it was the CPD input he most wanted to access.

Schools have already suggested an interest in further Inset provision and/or training and some have requested other teachers observe workshops in order to learn from the practices being disseminated. StoryWorks will be offering training and Inset on request and currently some school districts are seeking to combine resources to enable this to happen in their area. Following a recent performance of our new show (independently funded) ‘The Ice Maiden’, one school booked Inset for staff 3 days later, on puppet-making to facilitate this within Literacy and their own story-telling work. The place of the arts in education is of paramount importance to practitioners at StoryWorks, as is the facilitation of performance opportunities for young people – both as participants (in their own right and performing alongside professionals) and ‘observers’ – in order to develop the potential audiences for the future. Also, I do not believe I will ever tire of quoting Peter Hewitt, writing in the TES (30th May 2003), in support of my passionate belief in the right of all children to experience dynamic arts education:

Our belief is that the arts have the power to transform lives, and that dynamic arts experiences offered by schools have a lasting impact on young people

Please visit our website – http://www.storyworkstheatrecompany.com/ – and the ‘About Us’ page for full details of our CVs (enclosed) and current skills and experiences. The company is also posted on the KEAP website – www.keap.org.uk/market_place and the Artscape Directory website – http://www.artscape.org.uk/. I have personally been involved for 23 years in delivering the arts across the phases of education – I made the decision last year; following the success of DramaWorks; to bravely go freelance to enable me to work with numerous schools and participants and promote the amazing value of arts education to – in many cases – the enthusiastic but unenlightened. Many schools – in response to initial viability research – have already expressed an interest to be involved, but without funding will probably not be able to afford the project (and it seems unfair that some schools (a minority in Cornwall) can access arts workshops through Creative Partnerships and Education Action Zones etc). We have already heard from schools this term that want us to work with them again but can’t justify the expenditure. However several of our schools from last year’s project have already booked us in for further days this term on the strength of the value they placed on what we did with them last year. We would like to be able to work with more schools and enable more Cornish Primary teachers to use the arts confidently both in their own right and as an exiting cross-curriculum tool to enrich their pupils’ learning on a day-to-day basis.

3. Your Budget

The budget section of the application form, I believe, gives all the information needed for your financial assessment. The £100 per day proposed contribution from the schools is in response to information received from our initial trawl of schools for interest and affordability. As with teaching, it is assumed that a fee for a workshop includes the necessary planning and preparation time as well as time for reflection between sessions (although we have included a fee for pre-delivery planning as our experience last time was of a great deal of that up front with no money to do it!). The schools will be getting CPD for staff involved without the added expense of it happening out of school and the need for supply staff to cover classes – the class gets to be involved and benefit too, AND the teacher gets to see what they are learning being put into actual practice with their class. It is hoped that the continued success and clear value of a curriculum-based project like this one will ensure its continuation with investment pursued from elsewhere – this project needs to get the idea and concept established across more Cornish Schools, continuing the good practice of last year’s one. At the very least – 25 schools will have discovered new ways of working, teachers will have developed new skills that they will continue to use and hopefully disseminate across other staff (evidence from last year’s project suggests this has certainly happened and been of great value to all concerned), and a small part of the gap in provision for the arts at teacher training level will have been closed – or at least addressed!

The decline in the arts content of initial teacher training (ITT) courses for primary teachers has caused widespread concern (Rogers, 1998; Rogers, 2003) (p. 1)

4. Benefit to you and the Public

As previously stated, it is intended that this project will further develop our reputation for the provision of quality curriculum exploration through the arts and performance in Cornwall. For myself it will enable me to continue my freelance development and for my colleague it will allow him to gain further confidence in delivering workshops and developing performance work through puppets, music and design with and for the participants we work with. As part of our development plan we will be looking to bring in other practitioners to work alongside us, giving them on-the-job training in facilitating arts-based workshops. Obviously it is intended to be able to offer further employment in the future as we expand or at least enable them to take their skills elsewhere and perhaps set-up for themselves in other areas of the country.

The PSHE teaching benefits of our proposed project are clear. Our previous commitment to showing the benefit of the arts in delivering many aspects of a PSHE curriculum have led to work this term using drama and story-telling skills with this purpose expressed as a principal objective by the schools for working with us.

Hardman, in a T.E.S. article; So, what is education for (TES Viewpoints February 11) suggests:

I am afraid of a future without emotion. Education should be exciting enough to stimulate children into feeling, experiencing and remembering. . . . The ability to participate and communicate effectively is probably one of the most valuable skills in life. Interaction is vital . . . The chance for children to feel, enjoy and ultimately to create must be preserved. (p. 5)

Many of the schools we are already working with (unfunded – at cost) have expressed an interest in an end of project performance – eg one school wants its KS1 children to perform their own story at their Harvest Festival; another school is looking for a whole school performance of the Easter Story for their end of Spring Term Community Mass Service. Both have suggested they would like to do this as it would be more interesting and exciting for all involved that what normally happens! Our proposed project considers the sharing of work with parents and the schools’ wider communities as an essential element of its success and a selection of the research undertaken in support of what the arts in schools can provide is quoted below:

Downing, D. Johnson, F. & Kaur, S. (2003) Slough: NFER suggest that:

Whether taught for their own intrinsic value, as a medium for the teaching of the wider curriculum, or as an essential element in the life of the community of the primary school, the arts have long been cherished by teachers, parents and children. However, their place and status has been challenged in a variety of ways over the last 20 years. (p. 1)

Sharp, C. & Dust, K. (1997) in Artists in Schools state that artists in residence:
help schools to broaden their coverage of the curriculum, develop the skills of the teaching staff, and make links with the wider community (p. 4)

artists-in-schools projects can be a good means of attracting the interest and participation of parents (p. 6)

We have been touring ‘The Ice Maiden’ over the past 3 weeks – funded by participating schools and the Carn to Cove Rural Touring Scheme. Workshops have accompanied this in some schools and village hall venues. At one school we decided that getting parents to come with their children – something unheard of in this particular area – was the most important outcome we could aspire to. We did the show with the school on a box-office split at 3.30pm on the condition that parents must accompany their children. We subsequently performed to an audience of 95 – unexpected but amazingly rewarding. At the same school at the end of our previous project, parents saw an assembly from their year 3 children about the Victorians – but as a story worked on with us. Their comments were all complementary about it being a far better way of their children communicating their knowledge about a curriculum area and far more enjoyable for their audience!

Newsletters to parents, notices in village magazines, posters and flyers displayed in prominent places in the villages of the schools involved, will alert the communities to the performances at the end of the project. Parents will be welcome to participate in workshops – by arrangement, and it is envisaged that participants will communicate with their parents between sessions. Publicity in publications such as the KEAP newsletter and The Works termly brochure, and entries in local papers by individual schools as the project progresses, will publicise the project to the wider community. Depending on the choice of specific project for each school, it is hoped that issues relevant to the community of the individual school will be targeted – for instance, specific links being made with parts of the community not normally involved with this type of activity. In some parts of the project, it might be appropriate to make a DVD of the process and/or performance that would then be available for parents to buy – contributing to fundraising efforts of the individual school. For many schools it is less about their ability to engage their students with the school’s values, but more about the real challenge of the potential for the school to affect the wider community. Connectivity and looking out are key questions that StoryWorks hopes this project will be able to open the debate on.

Finally, our company would clearly benefit from the acquisition of a van as for the past 18 months our own vehicles have been our only means of transport! However, having the company logo on our vehicles has greatly increased the public profile of StoryWorks with many people commenting that they had thought there were more of us as they see our logo everywhere!

5. Meeting our Ambitions for the Arts

This project clearly targets 4 out of 5 of your stated ambitions for the arts.

In a climate where arts education is clearly under funded, this funding will enable the artist-practitioners of StoryWorks to be engaged in work on a wider scale than would otherwise potentially be possible.
The financial support in our first full year has established our reputation and enabled development that will allow us to develop independently in the future (particularly if schools had the money they would like to be able to allocate to having us work with them!). We have been working fairly regularly in schools this term without any external funding support. Our aim for 5 years time is for ours to be the name all schools think of first when deciding who to get in to deliver arts-based curriculum projects.
The opportunities the project would offer extend beyond the Primary-aged pupils and embrace the HE students involved, giving them the potential for real rather than hypothetical opportunities for developing their workshop practice skills. StoryWorks is also offering opportunities for some of the young people undertaking the YPAA award to work with StoryWorks (Bodmin College currently involved with a project in a St. Austell Primary school – funded by the school); again, providing a real, rather than hypothetical, situation to facilitate the achievements of the aims of the YPAA.
And the project would encourage growth by increasing the support for the arts in education through the audiences involved – some new to what is on offer – and therefore open up more opportunities in the future for other artists to work in this currently under-developed area of educational provision. The intention of StoryWorks is to expand still further, employing more practitioners to deliver more diverse projects – hopefully many of these practitioners will be young artists, being given their first step on the arts career ladder, embodying the educational ethos that we feel is at the heart of our company. We have been told by The Works: Dance and Theatre Cornwall that we are the only ones engaged in this kind of work in Cornwall.

In terms of cultural diversity it is envisaged that all pupils – regardless of race or ability – involved in the project will have equal access to all the opportunities available. Also much of the material schools chose to use has a distinctly Cornish flavour – hence embracing the ethnicity of Cornishness and the culture of this particularly individual County.

6. Evaluation

In terms of evaluating the project we have realised the need to do this as a continuous and very regular formative exercise; getting teachers to note down as they go along their feelings about what they and their children are getting out of our work as well as doing this ourselves following each session. We will be asking teachers to consider evaluation under the following measurable learning outcomes: PSHE value, artistic skills gain, aspects of the creativity agenda demonstrated, and acquisition and comprehension of subject (both of the art form and the curriculum topic(s)). We will be using a range of ways of recording what happens and using these to inform the evaluation and feed back – most schools take photos and film parts of the work we do with them, many create visual displays with descriptive writing, original stories, performances – not only at the culmination of the work but of bits along the way, interviews with the children and the teachers, letters from the children, evidence of impact on planning, evidence of dissemination practice across the school, etc.

In terms of the need to evaluate – this is something teachers, pupils and certainly the HE students do as a matter of course. Evaluation, as already suggested, will be on-going (formative), and, when the sessions with each school are delivered, subsequently reflective (summative), with questionnaires asking for feedback regarding what each school felt they got out of the project and how they would like to see the work developed and extended, and how they might like to be involved with us in the future. Part of the proposed evaluation budget will facilitate representatives from all the participating schools coming together to share experiences and reflect together on what was achieved. An in-depth write-up of all the evaluation material will then be carried out and posted on the StoryWorks website.

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