IN SCHOOL ACTIVITIES

Millennium School

As part of the Cultural Partnership funded by the Arts Council of England, Unclassified Arts have designed and implemented two projects this year. The first was a drama project targeting Year 1 and 3 children with autism, looking at how they work with emotions, and how they relate to people both inside and outside school. The project included an outside trip to put into practice their role-plays, and culminated in a workshop/performance in front of the whole school.

The second project was called the Playground Project. It was felt that playing football contributed to the arguments and fights at play and lunch-times, so the school raised money and brought new playground equipment, and it was Unclassified Mime’s job to work with each year group and review what games you can play, as well as inventing new and exciting ones. This involved training peer mentors as game leaders, researching at other schools at how young people play, and then spending a whole week observing and evaluating how the young people have changed their approach to play.

As a result of the success of these projects, Unclassified Arts has been approached to be artists-in-residence at Millennium School, subject to funding.

South Camden Community School

During the academic year 2002/3, Unclassified have been running a project titled South Camden Arco in conjunction with Weekend Arts College. South Camden Arco consisted of fourteen year 11 boys who have been identified as students at risk of exclusion. The aim of the project was to re-engage disaffected or disadvantaged young people through quality experiences in performing arts and media subjects, developing aesthetic awareness as well as technical skills; to encourage students to develop as a learner and gain focus for their next step as well as to improve transferable skills such as teamwork as well as develop personal qualities such as self-confidence, self-esteem and motivation.

As well as teaching drama, Unclassified Arts hired outside tutors so the course could also provide video production, music technology and digital design. As well as acquiring new performing arts/media skills, their attendance and punctuality had improved and their work can now be seen on www.sccs.camden.sch.uk/

Muschamp Primary

For eight weeks Unclassified Arts had been teaching on Tuesday afternoons at a drama club at Muschamp Primary. The young people had the opportunity to do some creative writing, which would then be used to create and perform small plays. The work produced looked at things that meant a lot to the pupils, such as families, schools and best friends. At the work-share Unclassified presented the students with a small collection of the written work they have done. There are poems and short stories written in a variety of ways, sometimes just using single words or sentences, sometimes written by one person or the whole group.

Rangefield Primary

Make Believe Arts approached Unclassified Arts to work on "The Boys Project, which targeted eight Year 5 and eight Year 3 boys from Rangefield Primary. Although they were not at risk of exclusion, they had been identified as young people who could potentially be poorly motivated and switch off from learning. The idea was to re-engage these young people through quality experiences in performing arts and media subjects, developing aesthetic awareness as well as technical skills, focusing on primarily with drama, stage-fighting and journalism.

For the Boys project, the tutors looked at enabling the boys to devise a performance and create a magazine that will be focussed on young people, conflict and peace. The work concentrated on how young people think and what is important to them, and how society and the media are also out of touch with them. Because of this, society does have a view on what young people are about. This gave the young people the opportunity to challenge the image of themselves, to prove to people that they do have a voice, that they are articulate and that when given the chance, they can comment on themselves in particular, and society in general.

Further Education: Crawley College

Since 1993, Unclassified Arts has worked at Crawley College, designing and teaching a specific module of their BTEC Performing Arts called Theatre-In-Education (TIE). In this module the company help the students to research and devise a specific piece of interactive theatre aimed at a particular age group. Using their own TIE experience, Unclassified Mime provide directors for 2/3 performance companies that then tours primary schools throughout the West Sussex region.

Royal Free Hospital school

Through Weekend Arts College, Unclassified Arts have been involved with teaching at school which is based at Royal Free Hospital for the young patients who stay to receive treatment. As well as circus skills, drama and singing, they have also worked on the play "Bugsy Malone."

Other work in schools

In conjunction with Art of Regeneration/National Theatre, Unclassified Arts was involved in an initiative to bring Shakespeare’s works into schools. The text they concentrated on was "The Tempest" and the workshop toured Millennium school and St. Alfrege’s School.