Autumn 06

This project includes:

M6 Theatre Company

Steve Hutton, illustrator;

Terry Caffrey, poet;

and Beth Allen, musician and voice coach.

The third strand of a programme of work which focuses on the question: “How can stories be made?”; it focuses on children at Key Stage 1 but will also included Reception and Year 1 pupils. Essentially it was about improving their writing skills and enriching their vocabularies for speaking and retelling stories. It aimed to give them the skills and confidence to use an enriched language when speaking and  retelling their stories and poems to their peers. The programme will incorporated the Autumn Term PSHE theme of: ‘Who am I?’ and ‘Where do I live?’.

After having seen a piece of theatrical storytelling presented by M6 Theatre with the children, 3 artists met with School Co-ordinator Alison Wilkinson to discuss a potential Autumn Term programme. 

The three artists: Illustrator Steve Hutton, Poet Terry Caffrey, and Voice Coach Beth Allen, 2 members of staff: Alison Wilkinson and Gill Worswick, and 2 representatives from Mid Pennine Arts: David Smith and Hannah Kidd, spent  further day together planning a joint approach.  The artists chose to work independently whilst in dialogue with each other to maintain continuity to the project.

Whilst there was some overlap, the children worked first with Terry Caffrey using poetry to described people and events on their street; secondly with Steve to illustrate the house and characters to who lived in those houses; and finally with Beth Allen developing songs and stories about these charaters.