Drama Practitioner sought to deliver Ancient Egyptian-themed workshops   
Dunstable Icknield Lower School is a two-form entry lower school; Nursery to Year 4. We are looking for a provider to help us address the needs of a group of 12 – 20 (max) Year 3 disadvantaged children. This group have not achieved age expected in writing and are disengaged in writing activities.

Our theme is Ancient Egypt. We would like to work with an enthusiastic and resourceful drama practitioner to help the children translate their story ideas (developed in class with their teacher) into a short play (or series of scenes) that will be presented to their peers. Through the development of the story into a performed script our objective is that the children will deeply understand the importance of punctuation.

We would like the sessions to incorporate acting games to build confidence, idea generation and communication skills.  We hope that the development of new skills delivered via creative teaching techniques will increase children’s confidence to engage in writing independently.

This project would run during the 2020 Spring term with the provider delivering a sequence of 4 sessions over 4 weeks delivered on either Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday afternoons. 

It is expected that the provider will undertake some preparation by speaking with staff in order to plan this project effectively and this can be done over the telephone. The school are very open to all interesting and engaging ideas however our working plan of the sessions are: 

  • session 1) acting games (confidence building and idea generation), to begin to look at the importance of punctuation affects how stories are read out loud.  
  • (interim activity: Year 3 to spend one week writing a comic book strip with class teachers using the theme of mummification in ancient Egypt in English lessons) 
  • session 2) To share ideas from the comic book strips to create a short play and to allocate roles. Continuation of the punctuation and communication games.  
  • (interim activity for practitioner – to devise a short script and send it to the children via the teachers) 
  • session 3) read through and rehearsals 

  • session 4) rehearsals and presentation of play to rest of the year – to include evaluation activity

Resources available will be teacher or TA, school hall, art & library rooms, classroom and playground area. As a school we are very keen to learn from expert practitioners and would like to work with a practitioner who is comfortable being observed by friendly and curious staff members. 

This opportunity is open to all Culture Challenge providers and we anticipate fees per provider/s to fall within a total budget of £500.00 (paid via Culture Challenge vouchers) to include prep time, travel, materials and 4 afternoon sessions. To express your interest please email your response to this brief to AileneG@bedfordcreativearts.org.uk briefly detailing your proposal and signposting us to examples of similar work, your website or your Culture Challenge profile in no more that 2 sides of A4. The deadline for expressions of interest is Friday 29th November 2020.