Children Being Brilliant

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I often get asked what it is actually I do – people tend to know bits of it but are aware that there are other things going on.  My answer to the question of what my job is varies according to what hat I’m wearing on that particular day.  Obviously I direct and write youth theatre shows and have the privilege of working with young people from YTYT, WYTDC and performers each week.   However although incredibly important to me this is just a part of my professional portfolio.

In addition to the lovely things listed above some days I get the honour of training doctors and health professionals.  I write plays.  I help organizations to recruit the right.  I help people with mental health challenges with their recovery.  I also do a lot of work in schools trying to ensure that within the mayhem that is education policy the curriculum remains something that children and young people can find something valuable in and succeed within.

The more reductive the powers that be make the education system the more important it is to battle for the place of arts in the curriculum.  Education should be about inspiring people to learn more, it should make them hungry for knowledge and a belief in themselves that they can be more than they are.  It’s also supposed to be about unlocking and celebrating the brilliance in children. Those principles have been demoted by those in charge and unless a school is prepared to work really hard and really imaginatively they are going to end up becoming a place where children are only made aware of what they are not good enough at. 

A school that has powered so much effort and imaginative into making sure this fate does not befall their students is Kings Oak in Barnsley.  In the project I’ve just done in collaboration with them we were lucky enough to have a film maker (the brilliant Nick Singleton) to capture and celebrate some of the brilliant children’s journeys and joy…so for those people who ask what I do and anyone who is interested in education, the arts, drama and affirmation please watch this film. 


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