performance for stage and screen | Workshop Portfolio | Arts in the Community | | Sarah Milner |

“Theatre is a form of knowledge; it should and can also be a means of transforming society. Theatre can help us build our future, rather than just waiting for it.” (Boal, 1992, p. 31) For this module in Arts in the Community I wanted to work with children and after talking to Alice I discovered that she did too, we thought that it would be a good idea to find a placement together. We wanted our workshop to be influential and build on children's skills. Initially the idea was for our placement to be with disabled children as Alice and I wanted to create a workshop that centred on building their self-esteem, the project plan can be found in the Appendix (Figure 1). We looked for different places that would be suitable and thought of ideas for activities in our workshop. After discussing our plans we thought that it would be too difficult for us to be able to come up with a suitable workshop for disabled children as neither of us has had experience dealing with disabled people in the past. Straight away our idea changed to working with young children in either a school or drama club. We thought this would be easier for us to be able to design a suitable workshop, and becoming a teacher is a path that I’m thinking of following and this would give me a bigger insight.
Finding a placement was very difficult; we came up with the idea of doing a Christmas themed workshop with the children so that didn’t give us a long space of time to find a school. We needed a target audience of between reception years and year 3 realistically as they needed to believe in Santa, we were going to be Christmas Elves asking for the children's help. I put together an email which can be found in the Appendix (Figure 2) asking schools if they would like us to run a workshop with the children. A reason we found it difficult is that Alice and I did not have a CRB check; a lot of schools were unwilling to take us without one. I researched and found the contacts of every primary school in Sheffield, as well as my home town and Alice’s. After emailing 78 different schools I received one reply from Ecclesfield Primary School saying that they wanted to have us come in on Wednesday 19th September. Hannah Smith the deputy head of the school and I arranged to come in on the 19th of December, and to put on four workshops with each class in the year one and two which was our target age group. This was an ideal placement as it allowed us to put on more than one workshop which would help us gain more experience.
At times we struggled with putting the workshop together as I wasn’t sure what the children were capable of doing and I was worried we had planned activities too complex, it was hard to anticipate how the children were going to react as we were unable to put it into practice. I researched different games and activities and thought about how we could adapt them to our theme and use them for the children’s advantage. The outline of our lesson plan can be found in the Appendix (Figure 3). 'It's all about creating moments where participation is impossible to resist, moving forward into the process you have set up, and having fun along the way.' (Paterson, 1998, p. 4) This is exactly what we wanted to do with our workshop. At first we thought of using the activity that we did in lesson of using voices and sound to create for example a factory but I thought we could use this to create the sound of Santa’s workshop. We changed this as we decided that it might be too difficult for the children to follow and too hard to control, instead we played a movement game of them walking around the room and we shouted for example Reindeer and they had to do the movement of that. Another exercise that we adapted was a treasure hunt, I saw this and thought this would be a brilliant way to engage the children and make them work together with each other to find the stolen present that we had hidden, and they used the clues that we placed around the room. The clues can be found in the Appendix (Figure 4). A disadvantage we had was that we didn’t have a way to put our workshop to the test to see if children responded well or if our activities would work and are easy for the children to understand, the first workshop was also our first run through.
There were unknown factors about the classes so when planning we had to assume there would be at least thirty children in the class. At the end of the workshop we gave sweets and honorary elf stickers to the class to reward them for their hard work. We planned for thirty five people in the class in order to make sure that we had enough for everybody and we brought extra just in case. Alice and I both wore matching elf costumes; we wanted to wear the same for it to be more believable for the children as we were supposed to be Santa’s real elves.
'Workshops are the embodiment of experimental learning, where people will often learn better by practice rather than being asked to take in information passively.' (Reynolds, n.d., p. 12). Our main outcomes for the workshop was that we wanted to inspire the children's creative thinking and have them solve problems, also helping them with their team working skills through different art mediums as we didn’t want them taking information in passively. Dorothy Heathcote was one of the first teachers to use drama as a teaching skill helping children to learn in a new creative way, she particularly used the method of 'teacher in role' as an approach to teaching, essentially we were constantly in role as elves but we had to adapt how we were presenting it. I wanted to use her methods to help me in my approach to putting on the workshop. As we want the children to think for themselves but not get out of control I would use 'the shadowy role' so the class is still able to do their own problem solving and I will be letting them take the lead. If the class start to misbehave then I would go into the 'governor role' to assert my authority and power (Wagner, 1976, p. 128). This will help me be able to make sure the class are able to get a positive experience by doing the thinking themselves and interactively without it being chaotic, as we were pretending to be elves and it was so near to Christmas I knew the children would be excitable.
In the workshops we came across various problems but by doing four separate workshops we were able to adapt it every time to work better and see where we could improve. The first workshop with Y1AS ran better than expected as it was our first run through I didn’t know what the outcome would be. We realised that the workshop only lasted forty minutes and we wanted to fill the hour. We rectified this as in the next workshop we began with giving the children time to ask us any questions they had and we also allowed the children more time on working on their drawings. Children have very creative imaginations so when they asked questions we had to think quickly as we were getting bombarded with them, for example, one girl asked me who had painted my nails and I responded with Mrs Claus. This shows that the children are very interested and were able to engage interactively with us and answer any curiosities that they had.
In all of the workshops we ran I noticed that at least one or more children were feeling left out or not wanting to participate. 'The teacher-in-role not only has the responsibility of bringing the whole group into the drama, but also the further responsibility of working individuals into the drama. This means looking out for individuals who are having difficulty believing in it.' (Neelands, 1984, p. 51). We made sure that one of us at all times worked with the individuals and made sure they were included in whatever task we were doing, sometimes this was difficult but I found that telling the children they were helping Santa generally made the children participate again.
As the children were between the ages of four and six we had to make sure that we adapted our voices to suit them. I realised that I needed to use longer and more detailed sentences in order to make sure that the children understood each task. I found that using short phrases that activated responses from the children was important as sometimes talking too much can confuse them and they could lose interest. I also had to adapt my movements especially in tasks such as the movement game and I did an over the top reaction to the stolen present, doing this made the children react with me. I used over the top movements and almost 'pantomime like' acting when doing the movements and games with them. Doing this with my voice and body kept the workshops at a faster and more exciting pace and kept the children's focus on the activity.
The spaces in the classroom were small so we had to push the tables and chairs back as far as possible and try to adjust our workshop to each different shape and size. This proved difficult in times such as when they were doing the movement warm up. We had to make sure that we gave the children clear instructions to be slow and watch where they were going which we kept reminding them throughout so that they were safe and not tripping over each other.
Each workshop we ran was different from the other, each time we adapted and changed it slightly because we were learning what worked and what didn’t. The second workshop with Y1RH was our biggest learning point. The way we structured the treasure hunt at first was for the children to walk about the classroom together and find the clues and solve them. This class were far too excitable and some of the children found the present before the hunt was over. This is where Dorothy Heathcote's 'Governor Role' came into play. Alice and I had to assert our authority as the children were diving into the present ruining the hunt for the children who were participating; I raised the tone of my voice to show the children that I was in the teaching position. To calm them down and stay in our roles as elves we told the children that Santa was watching and we would be able to tell him if they would be on the naughty or nice list. This worked to our advantage as the children almost immediately changed their attitude. After the disaster of this workshop we discussed at lunch how we could make the task less chaotic. We decided that instead of having the class running riot we would have the children sat in a circle and a volunteer we chose would look for the clue then read it out to the class, the volunteer would then pick the child who was going to answer the clue and then they would become the next one. This worked much better in the next two workshops and was able to keep the children under control as they were desperate to be one of the volunteers. The purpose of this task was to get the children to think and solve the clues themselves (Figure 4) and by making the children choose the next volunteer this put them in control. They were able to communicate with each other and listen to people's opinions and encourage each other. 'The purpose of teacher-role is to put the children into an immediate situation where they have to do the thinking, the talking, the responding, the decision-taking, the problem-solving' (Neelands, 1984, p. 50).
I think that the best workshop was the third one. The children responded really well to every task we did and showed a keen interest in asking questions and getting involved. When some of the children finished the drawing task I asked them then to help others who were struggling with ideas. The drawing task gave them a chance to put down their own ideas and show off their creativity. This helped them work as a team and the tasks gave some of the children who were usually shy a chance to build their confidence. 'In a workshop the children watch as contemporary investigators and not as passive spectators. This way we are engaging the children in lively and energetic way without them sitting and learning in a classroom.' (Jackson, 2007, p. 134). As it was very near to Christmas the children were very excitable, this made it hard for them to focus as at times it shifted to asking us every question they could think of. Some children were saying that we weren't elves because we didn’t have pointy ears, but I told them that I did but we weren't allowed to take our hats off to show them, although at some point a child did try taking my hat off, the children did seem to believe what we were telling them. They also asked why we were tall and I said that there were many types of elves for making different size presents in the factory. Effectively as well as running the workshop for the children they were 'Hot Seating' us as we had to think of answers and respond quickly so we were being tested and performing our own tasks at the same time.
We didn’t just use drama in our workshop; we wanted to include different art mediums to introduce to the children. We included movement, art and singing. Some children responded better to different activities and giving them a chance to explore different ones allows them to be able to see which they like and don’t. The children who aren’t as confident to speak up in class were able to show their creativity in the drawing task.
If I were to do another workshop again then I feel I have more experience and knowledge of how to run a successful one. I have realised that there are times that are needed to step back and let the children discover things for themselves but also times where asserting my authority as the teacher is needed. I found creating the workshop at times harder than devising the piece as making a suitable workshop for your age target and keeping the children's interest is important and hard to do. Doing this has allowed me to stretch the boundaries of my skills and took me out of my comfort zone which allowed me to explore an option that I would want to do in the future. Overall, I think that the workshops were successful in giving the children a unique experience and they seemed to really enjoy it. I noticed that some of the children were coming out of their shell more towards the end which is building on their confidence. In this module I have learnt to be able to adapt to engaging with different audiences and found that using Dorothy Heathcote's teacher-in-role theory and applying it works well, it is an effective way of an approaching a workshop and in future I will take this skill with me.

Bibliography

Boal, A., 1992. Games for actors and non-actors. London: Routledge.

Jackson, A., 2007. Theatre, Education and the making of meanings. Manchester: Manchester University Press.

Neelands, J., 1984. Making sense of Drama. Oxford: heinemann.

Paterson, D., 1998. Theatre for community, conflict and dialogue. Portsmouth: Heinnemann.

Reynolds, R. H. a. P., n.d. Dramatic events, How to run a successful workshop. London: Faber and Faber Ltd.

Wagner, B. J., 1976. Dorothy Heathcote Drama as a Learning Medium. Washigton DC: National Education Association.

Appendix

Figure 1
Arts in the Community – Project Plan
We would like to work with disabled children in order to help them further grasp the concept of ‘teamwork’ and help inspire their creative thinking along with their self-expression through different art mediums.
We would like to possibly find a community centre where young disabled children go or a specialised school. We would also go into a primary school which maybe has a group of disabled children in whom the teachers feel could do with some more confidence.
We are interested in working with these clients due to the fact that we realise they may not have a lot of confidence when it comes to the arts. However, we feel that dramatic and activities using other art mediums will engage their creative side and help to boost their self-assurance and expression.
The types of activities will probably include drawing/painting in order to bring them out of their shell and help them to become more comfortable with us by allowing them to have fun (we may tell them what to draw or ask them what they would like to draw, depending on their abilities). This could then lead to a story telling of some sort, using their pictures to build the narrative. Another session might subsequently involve the children working together as a group /in groups to recreate parts of the story.
We hope to do two to three sessions with the children. The first session will include either us telling them a story and asking them to draw pictures to it, or asking them to tell us about their weekend (or something along those lines) and building a story around that in the next session. The final session will hopefully then include acting out small sections of the story that has been provided/made up to help their group working skills. Our responsibilities will be to make sure everyone is happy and able to do the tasks that are being set.
The potential risks might involve how the children react to doing group work. There may also be some risks surrounding their abilities to do the tasks.
There will need to be a CRB check as we will be working with children, there may be some ethical issues due to the fact that the children are disabled.

Figure 2
Hi there,
We are students at Sheffield Hallam University where we are studying Performance for Stage and Screen. Steve Jackson from pointblank recommended that we contact you. We would like to run a free short drama workshop as two Christmas elves taking the children on a magical Christmas journey. It is suitable for a class of children within school years 1-3.
We are hopefully looking to run this workshop before the December holidays, due to our theme, and whenever is convenient for you. It is worth mentioning that we do not have a CRB check so a supervisor would have to be present while the workshop is running.
It should only last around an hour to an hour and a half, but we will be able to shorten or elongate it, depending on your preference. If possible, we would also like to come into the class, perhaps a week or so before the workshop, to meet the children in order to introduce ourselves.
We can send you our workshop plan and what we hope the outcomes of the activities will be.
We really hope that you are interested in this as we feel it would be a unique drama experience for the children and of course it will be lots of fun!

Many thanks
Sarah Milner and Alice Parkinson
(Sheffield Hallam University)

Figure 3

Here is an outline of our lesson plan:

-Short introduction to acquaint ourselves with the children

-To start off a name game where the children will either sit or stand in a circle

-A movement warm up game

- We will ask them to help us in creating new wrapping paper designs for Santa’s workshop. We will give them a template of a present and the children will be able to design their own.

-We will then move on to the treasure hunt where a present has been stolen. With the clues the children will have to work together to solve them to help us get the present back

-To end we will use the Christmas song when Santa got stuck up the chimney and put movements to it with the children

-Inside the present there will be sweets for the children and stickers saying honorary elf for them to have.

This should all last an hour.

Figure 4 Clues
I have black eyes and a point orange nose
I like the cold the best,
Especially when it snows
What am I?

The sky is our road
We pull Santa’s big sled
You can’t see us though,
For you should be in bed
What am I?

I’m friendly and I’m useful
And I dress all in green
I help wrap and make presents
We work as a team
What am I?

I like to laugh and dress all in red
I travel the world giving presents
With my reindeer and sled
Who am I?

We come in different shapes colours and sizes,
On our insides,
We’re full of surprises
What are we?

We have halos for hats
And live in the clouds
We sound so heavenly
When we sing in a crowd
What am I?

I stand tall and green
And my many lights glow
A star sits on the top
With the presents piled below
What am I?

I have antlers on my head and a bright red nose
I’m Santa’s favourite guy
Shining light wherever I go
Who am I?