Secondary Schools

Our Story

Catalyst Theatre Arts were fantastic at working with the pupils and encouraging their development. The skills they had made a valuable contribution to the school and they aided staff development hugely.

English Teacher, The Westwood School

Our project with The Westwood School in Coventry was designed to support Year 7 pupils in their understanding and application of traditional tales and develop their confidence in their own abilities. The first day comprised a practical consultation session to enable us to guage what the group's understanding of traditional tales was and also their interests and ideas for the project.

Part of this process included a Discovery Day where pupils experienced multi-sensory approaches to staging stories for young children, as well as exploring different methods of narration, mask work and the connection between mind and body when approaching playing a character.

The students also worked towards taking their learning and teaching skills to the local primary school as part of their Arts Award Bronze.

What did the students say?

"I have learnt different ways of telling stories. I feel more confident because my reading has improved.  I feel much happier now :-)"

"I can plan a session for primary kids to help them tell stories."

"I really like using mask to tell stories"

"I like storytelling, especially when I choose how to do it."

What did the teachers say?

"Teachers who worked on the project have been inspired by the amount of control pupils had over their learning. Pupils were actively involved in planning individual lessons and making choices on what the best way forward would be. ALL pupils involved in the project were able to design a session for younger pupils, something that none of them were able to do before hand."

"When looking at pupils journals it is clear that there has been a huge amount of progress made in terms of their ability to reflect on their own learning."