Theatre in Education with PHSE
One of the ways in which we deliver our PHSE and citizenship programme is through theatre in education.
In the autumn term, it was with great pleasure we welcomed The Royal Court Theatre with their performance of Terriers to our year 10 and 11 students. The play was originally commissioned by Merseyside Police in 2008 and has since been performed throughout Merseyside as well as other parts of the country. The play examines gangs, gun crime, the peer pressure some young people are put under and the moral dilemmas and life changing decisions some young people have to make. Mrs Higgins, PHSE and citizenship co-ordinator said ”It is great to open our doors to such projects again. The Terriers team deliver an extremely powerful performance about important current issues in a way that relates to our students. The impact is immense.”
In November we embarked on an exciting project with Perception Theatre. We were joined by Joe and Bobbie-Lee who led two educational workshops with some of our year 9 students examining the extremely important themes of county lines, child criminal exploitation, moral compass and the “wall of silence”. As well as being educational, the information gained from the sessions will help them to develop two new scripts for forthcoming performances. Students thoroughly enjoyed the workshops, exemplified by some of their quotes below:
“It was really good. We got to express ourselves freely and the sessions gave us the confidence not to follow the crowd.”
“I really enjoyed it because it was practical rather than listening which made it much easier to understand the messages being conveyed.”
“They created a good atmosphere. I liked the questions because they were about serious issues, but it was done in a fun way. I learnt a lot about how I would act in certain situations and also about other people’s point of view.”
In December, we continued this partnership with Perception theatre where our year 10 and 11 drama students met with Bobbi and Joe to discuss a live script they are currently working on. Students conducted readings of the script and then had the unique opportunity to analyse and evaluate this along with the script writers. The students really valued the experience and wrote:
“My experience with perception theatre was fun, filled with a lot of amazing experience but it tackled serious topics in a sensible but creative way that made me see things in a new light with a deeper understanding.”
“Perception theatre was a fun filled workshop that engaged us as it spoke of education in theatre in a new light and helped us work on devising more.”
“In my opinion, the experience was thrilling and intrigued me with the idea of tackling such serious topics that are usually under reported. if I could, I would do it all over again.”
