Schools workshops: Shoebox in the Black Country

Post date: Jul 17, 2017 7:37:57 PM

On July 12th, four practitioners, Marlene, Susannah, Margaret & Adam led workshops for the whole of Year 10 (ages 14/15) at Dormston Secondary School in Sedgley in an action packed Forum Theatre presentation on conflict resolution. Several brave pupils put themselves and their improvised scenarios forward to act out scenes which were escalating into conflict, and their audience of fellow pupils called out "Stop!" every time someone saw a way to cool the atmosphere. They came up with some great solutions: "Don't wag your finger like that - it's aggressive" was one, but there were lots more ways suggested to ease the tension in tricky, potentially explosive situations. We had a great time, and from the pupils' liveliness and responses, we think they enjoyed themselves and, we hope, learnt something about 'cooling it'!

Then, the following week, Margaret and Marlene were at Chase Terrace Technical College, where we ran workshops across Year 10 on personal creativity. So we gave them lots of challenges, in pairs and small groups, to stimulate creative thinking and produce something to show in a minimum time frame. We were rather pushed for room to move - someone else had bagged the school's large, empty spaces - but despite the heat and sixty teenagers at a time vying fora piece of floor, we had a great day. The kids seemed to enjoy it, too!