Bring ‘Why Create a Drama?' to your area

Friday, 11th June, 2010

Baldy Bane Theatre Company has now successfully created two new performances for use in primary and secondary schools or for events and conferences.

This Project was funded by the Scottish Government through the Delivery Plan and will continue to tour throughout Scotland to raise awareness of domestic abuse and related issues with children and young people. Baldy Bane are planning a tour in October 2010 and are keen to hear from local authorities who would like to bring the performances in.

Please contact the theatre company if you are interested in bringing a live performance to your area.

Baldy Bane: 0141 632 0193 or alison@baldybane.org.uk

Background

The National Children and Young People's Prevention Network, made up of national and local workers with an interest in gender-based violence prevention work, put forward a bid to commission two new drama performances for Scottish schools. The bid was linked to the National Domestic Abuse Delivery Plan for Children and Young People and included development of new performances, a project evaluation including a mapping exercise of prevention work in local authorities and a resource pack for schools.

Baldy Bane Theatre Company who have previously successfully toured ‘To Have and To Hold' and ‘Cyberspyder' in Scottish secondary schools were chosen to create the performances, Strathclyde University Faculty of Education created a team to carry out the evaluation and an experienced teacher agreed to write the supporting materials for schools to be included in the resource pack.

Eight local authorities were involved in the Project which was named ‘Why Create a Drama?', primary and secondary schools hosted drama workshops which were run by Baldy Bane, and a script was created from the workshop materials. Four Women's Aid groups brought children and young people who have been affected by domestic abuse to a one-off workshop. The completed plays then toured to the schools who participated as well as other schools across the eight local authority areas. The evaluation team travelled with Baldy Bane throughout the process and looked at the impact of the workshops as well as the performances and asked teachers and members of senior management in schools their opinion of the process and how it had been received by pupils.

The primary school play is called ‘Gold Stars and Dragon Marks', and addresses the main issues of bullying and domestic abuse while looking at home life, friendships and behaviour in school.

The secondary school play has a working title of ‘A Big Boy Did It and Ran Away' and includes gender stereotypes, media influences on young people and abuse in teen personal relationships.

Both performances are followed by participative workshops which allow the audience to further examine the issues raised including an opportunity to question the actors in character.

The Project was launched in April of this year by Adam Ingram, Minister for Children and Early years and gave key officers from local authorities across Scotland the opportunity to see both performances and hear the findings from the evaluation report and the prevention work mapping exercise. Children and young people who had participated in the workshops attended the launch to speak about their experiences and receive a certificate from Mr Ingram. Voice Against Violence, the group of young people who are advisors to the Scottish Government on the issues of domestic abuse also attended and were very positive about the performances.

A further funding bid was submitted by the National CYPP Network to create a screen play of the performances which will be included in the resource pack for schools as a DVD. The Network hopes that local authorities will be able to buy in the live performances through annual tours around Scotland. The resource pack will be available on line by the end of the year, and will enable all schools to access the materials, should funding not be available to bring the live performances to local authorities.

Copies of the evaluation report and the baseline study of prevention activities across seven local authorities are available to download below.