Budding Thespians at Don Valley School

Mystery and adventure, humour and excitement – even a schizophrenic shopping trolley (of which, more later!) were all on the bill at Don Valley School Library this November. Students from Sunnyfields, Bentley High Street and Bentley New Village primaries joined Don Valley Readers Group for a fabulous two days inspired by the DBA long-list.

Our workshops were led, as ever, by Dave Cryer, and he brought his tried and tested brand of reading, discussion, creative writing and drama to bear on nine of this year’s books. The titles chosen were a careful mix of genres, which provoked much animated discussion around reading preferences, and also, particularly following the drama activities, encouraged students to try new types of stories.

Daniel (Yr 6 Sunnyfields), for example, found himself ‘liking books I don’t normally like’, while Fiona (yr 10 Don Valley) said ‘ there are four books on the list I’d really like to read now that I’ve worked on them and heard other people’s opinions’. Henna (Yr 5 Bentley New Village) now wants to read ‘five of the books we worked on!’

Due to the variety of titles explored, the activities too were extremely varied, and enabled the students to practise and showcase many different skills. This could be reading aloud while acting as narrator for their group; physical drama, like that based on ‘Kumari, Goddess of Gotham’ and her first encounter with 21st century technology, or portraying painful emotion as Patrick and his father from ‘Born to Run’.

As ever, one of the most important outcomes for all the students was the boost to their confidence achieved by working with new people and performing in front of the group as a whole. This new assurance was mentioned by almost every student present, but here is just a sample of the comments:

Heather (Yr 6 Sunnyfields) is proud of ‘performing my emotions’ and said ‘today was fabulous, fascinating and fantastic’

Jamie-Lea (Yr 6 Bentley High Street) ‘achieved working with complete strangers from other schools and worked well with them all’

Leah and Henna (Yr5, Bentley New Village) ‘I wasn’t shy for once’ and ‘I am now a lot more confident when I perform in front of people’

Abie (Yr7, Don Valley) is now ‘not nervous anymore’

As ever, the workshops proved a real success too as a transition activity. The primary students were excited at having the chance to visit and to work in their new school ahead of the move next September. Ellis from Sunnyfields said how much he has ‘enjoyed going to my secondary school. It was a great day, and I can’t wait to get to Don Valley’.

Udell from Bentley High Street said, ‘I liked mixing with children from other schools’.

It was equally successful in helping Don Valley students develop their leadership and organisation skills. Hannah (Yr10) liked ‘learning about the books and working with the primary children’, while Jessica (Yr8) said, ‘I loved working with younger kids in groups and feeling like a teacher’ and that she ‘now feels confident and not shy’

As Don Valley’s theme for November was the National Year of Reading’s ‘Screen Reads’, on the Thursday afternoon we used the Doctor Who book ‘Sick Building’ as our main focus. The students did some great performances in pairs as the Doctor and Martha, but some of the best work of the day came when each group had to become a ‘Servobot’ The students working in groups had to imagine a machine for doing household chores, like those designed by Professor Tierman in the novel. Every child became a component of the machine, with the groups working together in unison to demonstrate their function. The rest of the audience then had to guess what they were designed to do. The students also had to give their machines a personality - no easy task! The results were truly amazing - we had an entertainments console, a laundry machine, an incredible drinks dispenser, and, funniest of all, that schizophrenic shopping trolley!

The work of the students throughout the two days was excellent, and from the hugely positive responses, I know that they enjoyed it as much as Dave and I did. The Doncaster Book Award is all about Reading for pleasure, and the emphasis is on FUN. These final two comments clearly show we’ve succeeded in this. Bradley (Yr7 Don Valley) said, ‘I thoroughly enjoyed today for the simple explanation that I had fun’. Chantelle, (Yr6 Bentley High Street) said, ‘I enjoyed it because it was good fun’.

Roll on next year!

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