Matinee performance of Beauty and The Beast and follow up workshop

This annual partnership event is a fantastic opportunity for students to watch a live full scale musical production on stage in a theatre setting. Two schools who viewed the performance experienced a 1 hour follow up drama workshop in their own school setting based around the theme of Beauty and the Beast with the aim of building their confidence and performance skills.

Aims

The aim of the partnership was to provide a fantastic live performance opportunity for students who may not have been to the theatre before. Following feedback from previous years, we decided to offer a follow up drama workshop for 2 local primary schools to increase the impact of the event. The workshop gave students a chance to experience a one hour workshop based on the theme of the production and a valuable chance to develop their confidence and performance skills. The critical factors for success were the location of the schools that attended as only 2 required transport on the day, which can often limit the ability of local schools to attend. The immediate beneficiaries were the students and staff who were inspired by the standard of the performance and the live music that accompanied the performance. Many students said afterwards they had never seen a live band before or been to the theatre.

Background

The Head of drama identified the need to provide greater drama opportunities in primary schools and wanted to deliver the follow up workshops to expand the experience. 

The matinee performance event has been running as an initiative for many years.

Resources

The resources critical to this event were the year 7 & 8 students who were allowed off timetable to perform the show and the supporting staff who were made available to supervise the event. The event used both teaching and non teaching staff for both the live event and the follow up workshop. Three sixth form students were also used for the workshop to act as assistant workshop leaders.

Impact

Qualitative feedback was obtained from all schools via email and verbal feedback was also gathered at the end of the event and workshops.

 

This event was incredibly successful and will definitely be repeated again in future years.

Pupil Involvement

The pupils were from years 4-6 and mixed gender. The audience was all from the state school sector.

Frequency

This is an annual event which takes place in the summer term. It will continue for the foreseeable future.