As part of the BTEC Acting course Year 12 students formed their own Theatre in Education company and devised a programme which was performed at Budmouth College for Year 9 students as part of their PSE curriculum.
As with a professional TIE company considerations such as target audience, suitability of subject matter, health and safety, transport, organising the show and managing the programme schedule had to be taken into account. Students also had to create and produce a teachers’ pack which could be used by the staff at Budmouth College in their subsequent lessons. The Highcliffe students had a really rewarding time as can be seen by these comments from student Francesca:
‘It is 8:35 am and a small cluster of year twelve acting students wait by the Highcliffe minibus. They are excited and very, very nervous. The reason why our stomachs were tying themselves in knots exactly was that we were about to perform to a group of students at Budmouth College.
As part of our BTEC Acting course one of the modules is “Theatre in Education” which involves devising a piece of drama that uses various techniques and activities to educate the audience about a particular issue, ours being that of discrimination towards refugees and asylum seekers. After having created, rehearsed and performed it several times with students from our own school an opportunity arose for us to visit another secondary school and perform our workshop. But as the minibus drew closer and our nerves got greater we started to wonder whether this was such a good idea after all; our piece is largely based on audience input, and requires a great deal of improvisational skill on the part of the actors.
To add to the complications, we didn’t know in what environment we would be performing in or whether the audience would be enthusiastic enough to offer their input.
Needless to say, our fears were totally unjustified and we found ourselves working with an enthusiastic and pleasant bunch of year nine students. During the first part of our performance, they watched attentively and when the time came for them to offer their own ideas, a variety of students came up with intelligent and creative ideas. A number of students came onstage and played the parts of characters for themselves, showing their empathy and understanding of the message we wanted to put across.
Our piece actually went on significantly longer than we originally intended, simply because our audience had so many scenarios for us to perform! When collecting feedback afterwards, it seemed that we really had achieved what we had set out to do: many students explained how our workshop gave them a better knowledge of a complex issue. Yet, upon reflection, it seems that we too have greatly learned from this experience, as we have improved upon some vital skills as actors, such as improvisation and using techniques such as Forum Theatre. Also, if we as performers are enthusiastic, this will be mirrored by the audience.
In short, by educating others through drama, we also educated ourselves.’
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