Moving Stories

Moving Stories is a project with four Lewisham primary special schools and two resource bases, coordinated by Lewisham Education Arts Network (LEAN) and delivered by Peoplescape Theatre and Trinity Laban. Drama practitioners from Peoplescape Theatre and dance artists from Trinity Laban are working together with 12 teachers from the six settings to explore how arts-based approaches can support teaching and learning and develop pupils’ communication skills. 

Teachers have embraced the approaches and in year 1 told us their pupils’ ​“confidence, participation and engagement have improved,” and the work has ​“helped children achieve their EHCP targets.” In year 2, our focus has shifted to working closely with teachers to embed their learning and prepare for a future without the artists in the room. As a partnership of organisations, artists and teachers, we’ve had many conversations about how best to enable teachers to plan and lead dance and drama activities solo. Our multi-pronged approach has seen artists adjust their roles to become critical friends and mentors, rather than facilitators. Teachers have experienced more in-depth dance CPD, recognising that their lack of prior experience in this artform needed an extra boost. Together, teachers and artists have delivered CPD to their school colleagues to disseminate learning and inspire their whole school to embrace dance and drama as a teaching and learning tool. We’ve developed a physical resource with an ideas bank of activities, key concepts and detailed schemes of work, enabling teachers to look back, be inspired and plan for the future. Some teachers are nervous about flying solo, some are soaring. Through the Moving Stories creative community, we believe that teachers have had the best possible start to take the approach forward.

As a partnership over the past two years, we’ve each learned a lot and benefited from this complex multi-partner project. The three organisations are of very different scales and focus. Trinity Laban is a specialist dance, music and musical theatre higher education provider, with inclusive dance practice at the very core of its sector-leading public engagement programmes. Peoplescape Theatre is a small charity with an entirely freelance team who have extensive experience of working with SEND settings and have been creating inclusive drama and theatre for learning programmes for over 25 years. LEAN, also a small charity, provides strategic support for arts education in Lewisham and has close links with local schools. LEAN brings considerable experience in fundraising and building collaborative projects. 

Together, through Moving Stories, we have collaborated to share and exchange skills and resources to the benefit of the project. The number of partners and schools involved can make decision-making slow, but our shared focus, clear enquiry question, project plan and belief in the work galvanise us.

Each partner has further developed their understanding of the particular benefits of dance and drama (as individual artforms and collaborative learning experiences) for children with disabilities. Our close dialogue with teachers and SLT has enhanced our understanding of how we can effectively work with SEND settings. We will share our learning with a wider audience at a Moving Stories ​‘Conference’ in October and LEAN will continue to support a network of SEND settings as part of its work with the local cultural education partnership.

It’s clear Moving Stories is greatly valued by teachers and artists, pupils and schools and we’re excited to progress our work together beyond the Teacher Development Fund.