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Community Foundation Funding: How Ryton Federation used theatre and drama to dramatically improve pupils’ writing skills

Schools North East partnered with the Community Foundation to make a staggering £100,000 of funding available for schools wishing to develop their cultural, sporting or careers provision for disadvantaged and looked-after children. Funding of up to £4,000 was available per bid for schools across Tyne and Wear. 

This project meant so much to us all here at Schools North East, and we were delighted to organise such a powerful opportunity for some of our local schools.

We recently caught up with Ryton Federation to learn more about how they used this fantastic funding opportunity to help improve pupils’ writing skills. 

Project highlights

With such a fantastic, unique opportunity at their disposal, staff first sat down to determine what exactly were the greatest needs among pupils. 

A focus group discovered that 30 percent of Year 4 and 5 children were in receipt of Pupil Premium and that they had seen a massive impact due to COVID lockdowns, the main one being their spoken and receptive language. 

Naturally, this was having a detrimental effect on their writing and understanding of narrative, as well as their overall confidence. Staff felt that drama and storytelling activities were vital in order to ensure that this improved.

Because of their socio-economic background, these pupils were unlikely to ever visit a theatre, and the school felt strongly that these children should have a right to access culture. And we couldn’t agree more!

So, the school began to carefully plan a project that involved professionals from the Theatre Royal, all of whom the Ryton Federation team praised for their invaluable input.

They also worked to ensure that the project fit well with the school planned curriculum. For example, the stimulus text in Year 5 (The Wolves In The Walls) was suggested by the Year 5 teacher.

During the weekly drama-into-writing sessions, class teachers worked alongside the professionals from the Theatre Royal, which ended up being a vital part of the project.

The next generation of Shakespeare!

The children took part in many activities throughout the project, which all added to the bigger picture.

Firstly, they took part in drama games, which enabled them to become more confident speaking aloud in addition to allowing them the freedom to explore story ideas through drama. 

Another crucial element was developing the children’s knowledge of how plays work and how they’re written, from technical language (such as prologue, epilogue, at rise and stage directions), to how the performers interact on stage, such as how the narrative is driven through the dialogue, and how the actors need to face the audience when performing. 

Equipped with this knowledge, they then worked on a given play script so they could clearly see how the format is set out; the discussion was guided skilfully by the professional and this set the children up very well for the next stage of the project. 

After reading the stimulus text, the children were split into small groups and used the structure of the story to develop their playscripts. They had the time to explore, refine and adapt their ideas before recording them, which helped the flow of the project.

The children used special drafting books to develop their ideas, and were given the time to redraft and polish their playscripts. They were very proud of these books  (and rightfully so!) and made careful notes in them as they went along. 

Finally the groups of children were able to perform their finished work to the rest of the class, which helped boost confidence and strengthen the class community. 

To finish the project, the children enjoyed a well-deserved trip to the Theatre Royal to watch Annie. Not only did it make sense in line with the wider project, but it was also an opportunity to do something that they may never again get the chance to do.

The impact of the project

As a way to gather project feedback from the children, they were given a survey after the workshops in order to get them to reflect critically on their experience. 

So that all of the children could contribute, some were encouraged to draw their feedback while others had an adult scribe for them. 

Their assessment was overwhelmingly positive, which is always a delight to hear! The children said that they felt that the project had helped them to improve their writing, with some commenting that they felt more confident as a result. That’s a huge bonus.

Others highlighted that they really appreciated the time to do drama and to explore their creative ideas through this medium, rather than by writing straight away. 

And in relation to the Theatre Royal trip, the children were so excited to go! Many had no concept of what this might entail, having not even been to a cinema, let alone a theatre. They truly loved the performance.

When teachers were asked for feedback, they highlighted how they found the format of the sessions very helpful, and said that attending them helped increase their confidence in using drama as a means to stimulate writing. 

Many commented that they felt primary education has become more formal over the last few years and this project empowered them to use drama more widely. Excellent news!

A wise man once said “parting is such sweet sorrow.” But it sounds as though the impact of this project will last for years to come!

We love to hear good news from North East Schools, to share your news with Schools North East please tag @SchoolsNE on Twitter or fill in this short form.

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