Creative Workshops
Becci was very enthusiastic, she engaged and settled the children quickly. She read her story [published work Scribble Explores the World] and included the children by creating actions for them to join in with. She was with the class for only a short time and they left the carpet excited about creating their own stories and even after Becci moved onto another class they still carried on creating their stories enthusiastically.
Brenda (year one teacher)
I’ve worked with all ages from 3 to 93, and I offer:
- A variety of workshops from storytelling, creative writing and podcasting, to game creation;
- Storytelling: performances can be bespoke following particular themes for the individual school, or they may draw upon traditional tales such as myths, legends and folktale, or local history ;
- Playful Learning Scheme-of-Work Development.
I’ve delivered workshops in primary, secondary, college, universities and in community with adult learners. I’ve also worked with older adults with dementia and young people with SEND with needs ranging from complex to sensory.
Some Examples
Game Development
I spent a day working with Year 7s and 8s in Trinity Academy Cathedral, Wakefield. We explored simple text-adventure game creation. The children worked hard to develop some brilliant individual and group games.
Our students were really engaged and enjoyed the session […] some of our nurture groups really struggle to read but this wasn’t too much of an issue as the sessions were pitched appropriately.
Ryan Heszelgraves (Secondary School English Teacher)
After explaining how this type of game works and how to proceed, I worked with the students using pre-prepared prompts as they developed and wrote up their games.
One whole group worked together to create the following game about adventure, pirates, Krakens and vampires:
Podcast Creation
I’ve worked in primary and secondary schools to develop podcast episodes with young people. This is a great way of building oracy and enabling young people to pursue their interest in content creation in a safe and supported way. I work solely with audio and introduce young people to microphone use, editing software, copyright, foley art and sound design.
I’m currently working on a Podcast series with year 6 students in Barnsley, focussing on transition from primary to secondary school.
Playful Learning
I have developed Playful Learning Schemes of Work in both Higher Education and High School, and in March 2017 I was invited to give a TedX talk on my work in playful learning:
