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Gary R
March 30th, 2010

Not so quiet…

You might have noticed it’s gone a bit quiet recently here on the blog. That’s because we’re working feverishly behind the scenes to create a new improved online experience.

About four months ago I blogged about our success with some Arts Council Digitial Content Development funding (Digital Potentials). The result of that R&D was a new bid to completely change the way we offer resources. No more pdfs hidden behind passwords. All our projects will have their own mini-websites with activities, free to access and use. Interactive resources created for each project. Routes through for teachers, young people and other clients. The ability to comment on resources, and submit your own to make the sites a real collaboration.

We’re happy to report the Arts Council shared our enthusiasm for this project, and have provided the rest of the funding we needed. We’re working with web design company Substrakt and social media consultant Pete Ashton, so over the next few months our resources will be changing, becoming more interactive, responsive and free to use. We’ve been trying out some of these ideas over at our pilot site at http://theplayhouse.schools.officelive.com, where you can find out about the layers of the rainforest, explore the history of Sarehole Mill, or listen to podcasts created by participants in The Home Children.

The plan is that over the years more and more project ‘micro-sites’ will be created to accompany our tours and projects, creating a rich resource of free-to-use activities and information.  After the initial launch the next step will be bringing online activities developed especially for Promethean and SmartBoard Interactive White Boards. We’d really like many of the activities to be suggested or submitted by teachers or students taking part in our projects.

Watch this space!

Posted in The Play House | No Comments »

Gary R
February 26th, 2010

The voices of the Home Children

“…we are sorry that the voices of these children were not always heard, their cries for help not always heeded. And we are sorry that it has taken so long for this important day to come and for the full and unconditional apology that is justly deserved.”

Gordon Brown has followed his Australian counterpart and issued an apology for the ‘deportation of innocents’, child migrants sent from this country to countries such as Canada and Australia as late as 1967.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8531664.stm

The Home Children is our theatre-in-education project currently touring schools that tells the story. The issue is particularly resonant to Birmingham as many of the children sent overseas came from the Middlemore homes in Birmingham, one of which (long since closed) still stands just off the Middleway. With the help of Birmingham Archive we used letters, newspaper articles, original records, testimonials, workshops and interviews to shape this participatory performance.

At the end of their experience the children create their own podcasts about The Home Children. These modern-day children’s voices can be heard, and can be found on our website set up to accompany the project:

http://theplayhouse.schools.officelive.com/TheHomeChildrenSounds.aspx

Posted in Issue-based/PSHE, Junior/Key Stage 2, Language Alive!, Secondary/Key Stage 3/4 | No Comments »

Gary R
December 14th, 2009

I must get out more often

Last Wednesday was one of those rare occasions that I was allowed out from behind my desk and off into the real world. We’d been invited to take part in a Networking Day staged by Birmingham City Council. The event was billed as an opportunity for arts organisations to meet extended schools co-ordinators and other school representatives.

I have to confess I’m not exactly the first person to volunteer for these sorts of events. They can be a bit dull, and often attended by people who have been told to attend by their boss rather than wanting to be there. However, with another big event that day (Tapestry was being presented to Directors of Children’s Services on the other side of town), the job fell to me and Gavin, our administrator.

And I have to say I was really glad it did. I might have cursed the weight of our display boards once or twice as we lugged them into the foyer of Symphony Hall, but once we were set up it was clear it was going to be more than worth it. The attendees – extended schools to begin with, schools later on – were interested and enthusiastic. We had the opportunity to present a workshop on using drama and storytelling to support children with English as an Additional Language which drew a small but eager group. I had the chance to talk to lots of different people about our work, about what they needed, and about how we could help them.

But there was more. In what we call in our evaluation reports an ‘additional outcome’, myself and Gavin also had the chance to network with other companies. It’s so rare that we all come together in one place, showing our wares and getting chance to chat, seeing some old faces but a good array of new ones too. I’m sure more than one partnership was brokered that day.

All in all a really good way to spend an afternoon. I should really try and get out more often. 

To find out more about our extended schools work, you can have a look at Gangs & community cohesion, Holiday projects,  English as an Additional Language. Also our theatre-in-education tour Tapestry (Preventing Violent Extremism)  which has been mounted in out-of-school settings

Posted in Early Years, Extended schools, Infant/Key stage 1, Issue-based/PSHE, Junior/Key Stage 2, Secondary/Key Stage 3/4, The Play House | No Comments »

Gary R
November 26th, 2009

Safety and the cyber-world

Cyber-bullying and online child protection is in the news at the moment with some social networking sites refusing to install the “panic button” recommended by the Child Exploitation and Online Protection (CEOP) Centre. Opinions on this decision has been mixed, with The Guardian (Just one click to prevent child abuse) applauding Bebo’s decision to install the button, but The Times (A life online: just delete the cyber-bullies) questioning whether the button could address other issues, such as cyberbullying, and putting the emphasis squarely on the shoulders of parents.

Safety in the cyber-world is an issue for us on two different levels. Earlier this year we ran a project with a local school looking specifically at cyberbullying. The school had experienced some disturbing instances of bullying through email and texting, and with them we developed a project to look at these issues. Initial research sessions with year six pupils had shown that many of the children were acutely aware of what cyberbullying actually entailed. However, when probed further it became apparent that the children did not really distinguish between cyberbullying and the more general types of physical bullying or intimidation that may take place in school or other settings. To address this the project utilised masks and mask work as a way of ‘distancing’ participants from one another and exploring the anonymity provided by email and text messages. From this a peer education performance was created, with participants delivering to the rest of the school.

But we’re also wrestling with online safety from a different perspective. You might have seen from my earlier blog post (Digital potentials), we’re in the process of looking at our resources, and how to make them interactive and participative. For the first time the activities and resources we develop to support our programmes could be open to anyone online, rather than just teachers. This is certainly possible, but is it desirable? What sort of activity is appropriate? What sort of activity isn’t?  What can we put in place to make surfing safer for children and young people?

But there’s also another question. In The Times report above it references a survey by the Anti Bullying Alliance that said over half of children they consulted thought their parents needed to learn how to deal with it. How do we get to grips with a world where our children are more at home than many of us?

Posted in Issue-based/PSHE, Junior/Key Stage 2, The Play House | No Comments »

Gary R
November 16th, 2009

Synchronicity

We always make an effort to make sure our programmes are relevant and timely. Usually this is by design. For instanceThe Last Train touring this term was timed to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the Kindertransport leaving Germany.

Sometimes events overtake us though. It was with a strange sense of déjà vu that we watched the news reports in September about the riots in Birmingham city centre (here’s the BBC’s report on the incidents). We had spent the previous term devising and piloting Tapestry, our programme looking at preventing violent extremism. We’d consulted community groups, young people and police, and developed a programme following Hassan, Jason and Nazia as they shared each others stories – trapped in a deserted city centre shop during a riot.

This strange feeling of synchronicity has happened again. Today we started devising our consultation workshops for The Home Children, a tour that will bring to life the real stories of the child migrants, their families and those involved in their migration from British children’s homes to countries around the world. As I turned on my TV this morning I was moved by a woman who had been part of this migration, and in her case was sent to Australia. Her childhood had been taken away, she had grown up having been told she had no family, and had only recently discovered she had sisters living in Britain. She was on the news because the Australian Prime Minister had just issued an apology, and (we’re told) our own is about to follow suit.

It’s events like these that remind us that all the stories we explore, whether inspired by mythical, historical or contemporary sources, are relevant and resonant to the children and young people taking part.

Posted in Junior/Key Stage 2, Language Alive!, Secondary/Key Stage 3/4 | No Comments »

Gary R
November 6th, 2009

Changes…

A couple of years ago we asked primary schools we regularly work with about their interest in a tour “looking at issues around sex and relationships for Key Stage 2”, and 57% of schools were quite or very interested. We’re currently looking again at developing this sort of project (funding permitting…) to go in next year’s offer to schools.

So this week’s discussions on sex and relationship education have been quite timely for us. The plans by Ed Balls to remove the opt out for parents for children over 15 has, predictably, had mixed press. The BBC reported broadly positive feedback, whilst the Daily Mail focussed on fines for parents and religious leaders saying parents would ‘vote with their feet’.

Of particular interest to us, in the light of us planning a Key Stage 2 project, is the report from the BBC that a third of those polled said the right should end at age 11, and 20% said there should be no opt out at all.

It’s clear that the schools we work with do have an interest in this sort of work. There will, of course, never be a consensus…

Posted in Issue-based/PSHE, The Play House | No Comments »

Gary R
November 3rd, 2009

Digital potentials

Today we’ve received some great news. We’ve been funded by the Arts Council England, West Midlands Digital Content Development Programme to conduct some research and development into… well… digital content.

So what does that mean?

What it means for us is a chance to look at how we engage with schools, young people, clients and funders, and to consult about how we make things better. We’re anticipating overhauling our resources & evaluation, and for the first time making them every bit as participatory as our programmes. There’ll be new ways to extend the legacy of our programmes, support teachers, and involve children and young people.

Well, that’s the theory.

We’re getting excited by the potential, but we’re only part of the equation. It would be easy for us (and me in particular) to get carried away with what we can do with new technology and online resources. But we really need to know what’s going on already, what’s useful, what’s not. What do you need?

We’ll be talking to children, young people, teachers, funders and practitioners about what they’d like to see, but whoever you are out there reading this blog – young person, teacher, practitioner, educationalist – we’ll need your perspective too.

One of the best bits about this funding, particularly in the current climate, is that they encourage you to experiment, and even fail, because that’s how we’ll learn.

Not that we’re planning to fail of course, but this really is a chance for us throw everything up in the air and see where it lands. Which is very exciting, but a little bit daunting too.

Just as it should be…

Posted in The Play House | 2 Comments »

Gary R
March 4th, 2009

So, why a blog?

I’m not sure everyone at The Play House was as enthusiastic about creating a blog as I was! I suspect though this has a lot to do with the fact I’m a bit of a geek and I’m always suggesting these sorts of things. To me the internet is a fantastic way for lots of people to interact in both formal and informal ways. That’s why I think this blog is a great opportunity. It gives everyone a chance to participate in our world, and meaningful participation is what The Play House is all about.

We started this process with our forays into YouTube and Facebook, and the creation of the teachers’ group – trying to engage teachers and supporters in new ways. We’re hoping this blog will be a bit of a window into The Play House, an interesting source of information, and a stimulus for discussion.

It’ll be about our projects sometimes, but it’ll also be about interesting news we’ve found, or dilemmas that we need to discuss, or things that people have suggested. It’s a way to meet our staff, our board, teachers we work with, and young people that have participated.

We’ll value everyone’s comments and suggestions, so everyone will be able to shape what it becomes. And if you’d like to contribute, please get in touch – we’d really like to hear from you.

Posted in The Play House | No Comments »

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