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Heroes, Poetry and Finding What We Are Good At

By Nigel Godfrey, posted 28th November 2011 at 5:00PM | Comments

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Our summer term musical theatre show Ready, Steady, Go will be timed to help schools look at the Olympics and some of the issues it raises.
We want to use topical classic and contemporary children’s literature to drive our story along, and would love to know if you have any favourite books which might be appropriate.
In particular we want to explore:

heroes, and people we admire
competition
finding what we are good at
striving for excellence
teamwork

We love well illustrated picture books, but we want to make sure that the three or four books we finally choose will contain something for every class teacher from Reception to Year 6.

The show is also...

Repertory Theatre

By Nigel Godfrey, posted 28th November 2011 at 4:58PM | Comments

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British greats such as Judi Dench, Imelda Staunton and Michael Gambon all began their illustrious careers in rep.

Having spent the winter galloping up and down the country with last year's West End in Schools show Rev it Up, it was with a little reluctance that I boarded a train to Pitlochry in the Scottish Highlands to begin a seven-month stint at the Pitlochry Festival Theatre as a member of their acting company.

You will often hear famous actors talk about how they learned everything they know "doing Rep". This is when actors are part of a repertory company, which puts on a number of often diverse productions using the same actors. The rep system can mean anything from weekly rep -...

World Book Day

By Nigel Godfrey, posted 28th November 2011 at 4:56PM | Comments

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Of course we say "World Book Day" as if there is just one, but it isn’t quite like that.

There are in fact two "World Book Days". In the UK and Ireland we do it on 3 March (apparently to avoid having the day during the Easter holidays). The rest of the world does it on 23 April.

However the date is not the only confusing thing. The real title is World Book and Copyright Day, although in some places it is known as International Day of the Book.

But whatever it is called and whenever it is done it is a UNESCO organised event to promote reading and publishing, and it started in 1995.
23 April was originally chosen as a day to celebrate books in 1923, by booksellers in Spain in...

Success without effort

By Tony Attwood, posted 03rd October 2011 at 2:37PM | Comments

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It has been suggested many times in recent years that the current generation of school children has a particular problem that has never been seen before.

In the past it has been argued, children have recognised that success generally comes as a result of hard work and effort. That doesn’t mean that all children then go on and work hard or put in the effort, but it does mean they don’t expect things to happen just because they want things to happen.

But with the current generation – the generation that has grown up with X Factor as part of the establishment - this has changed. There seems to be a belief that if one wants something enough, it will happen.

Children can even be heard...

Book of the Month: I Don’t Want to Be a Pea!

Just Imagine Book of the Month - August 2011

By Nikki Gamble (from Just Imagine), posted 03rd September 2011 at 8:50PM | Comments

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By Ann Bonwill, with illustrations by Simon Rickerty

A hippo called Hugo and a bird called Bella are getting ready for the Bird-Hippo Fancy Dress Party. They decide to go as 'The Princess and the Pea' but neither wants to be the pea. Well, you wouldn't, would you? Because they both want their own way, they can't agree on a costume and they almost don't go to the party at all.

Ann Bonwill's witty dialogue has some laugh out loud moments and it reads aloud very well making this a super choice for the primary classroom.

'I will be the mermaid and you will be my rock. You make a very fine rock.' Bird tells her friend. Hippo isn't convinced 'I don't want to be a rock. It is too grey and...

Late availability - Schools on Standby

By Nigel Godfrey, posted 03rd September 2011 at 3:35PM | Comments

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Where we have gaps in our schedule at less than around four weeks notice we will now offer schools who elect to be on standby late availability visits at a massive discount off our normal prices - usually 40% off. These slots will be offered for a specific morning or afternoon in a specific part of the country.

Opportunities will be announced via our Facebook Page, and also via a subsequent email, which we intend to send out a few times a month. You can be updated by clicking the like button on our Facebook Page here, and subscribe to the emails here.

Whilst the vast majority of the hundreds of schools we visit each year will continue to book up in advance, we sometimes find that we...

Pantomime: Where did it come from, and what’s the point?

By Nigel Godfrey, posted 02nd September 2011 at 7:39PM | Comments

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Initially the pantomime in England was a short entertainment which was performed between the acts of an opera. It was seen as a rather low grade form of opera, equivalent to the French vaudeville, but it was popular and eventually evolved into a show of its own.
Modern pantomime could be seen to date from the early 18th century in England when John Rich started to stage shows which became very popular indeed, especially as they added popular topical references and used a wide range of theatrical special effects.
Such shows continued to develop into the 19th century and by the 1870s were clearly recognisable as what we know as modern English pantomime today.
What made panto so...

How much time do primary school pupils spend playing with computer games?

Does it matter, and what can we do about it?

By Nigel Godfrey, posted 12th August 2011 at 1:48PM | Comments

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Earlier this year a story appeared on BBC News about some research undertaken in a school in Devon in which children were asked how much time they had spent playing games on computers.

Over three-quarters of the children questioned said that they used a games console every night, with some pupils claiming they did not go to sleep until 4am.

A follow-up report in the Guardian highlighted the fact that since 2008 sales of video games in the UK have outstripped sales of films and music, while in 2009 Modern Warfare 2 was the biggest-selling item on Amazon, beating even the latest Harry Potter movie.

But does any of this matter?

Obviously children need sleep, and children deprived of...

Exclusive ticket offer - Butley, by Simon Gray - with Dominic West

By Nigel Godfrey, posted 03rd August 2011 at 4:58PM | Comments

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I had the great pleasure of attending the West End press night of Butley a couple of months ago, and I'm delighted that I have managed to arrange an exclusive ticket offer for readers of the West End in Schools blog who happen to be in London this summer holiday - but hurry, as the offer is only valid until 19 August.

Dominic West, star of hit US drama The Wire, plays rapier-tongued lecturer Ben Butley in a major new revival of Simon Gray’s award-winning comedy.

Ben Butley is having a monumentally bad start to the term. So bad, he’s making sure everyone else has a worse one. Over the course of a day he discovers that his estranged wife is divorcing him for the most boring man in...

Getting Boys to Dance

By Nigel Godfrey, posted 03rd August 2011 at 10:51AM | Comments

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A new choreographer working with us was delighted by feedback from teachers just before the end of term. The teachers had expected some of the older boys participating in the dance workshop would be unwilling to engage with the process.

However on this occasion Gary used football to engage with the boys and encourage them to use movements developed from the motion of kicking a football as part of their choreography.

In his own words “The key to getting children who would not usually dance to take part is all in the approach. By allowing them to create and devise movement from their own hobbies and interests and then combining that with a little set choreography, I was able to create...

Tags:
dance
process

A Little Bit of Magic

By Craig Christie (writer and composer), posted 01st August 2011 at 6:43PM | Comments

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Last week I had the great good fortune to be in the audience of the new musical Ghost in London’s West End. What a great evening’s entertainment with all the elements that make musical theatre great in place – great performances, engaging storyline, terrific music and wonderful design.

While a lot will no doubt be said about the special effects in the show – and they are amazing!- what I most enjoyed about them was that they were used to augment the storyline and used with a lightness of touch that didn’t distract from the emotional journey that audience was being taken on. Too often in recent years we have seen spectacle on stage make a poor effort at compensating for a storyline...

Wanted: The Perfect Pet

Just Imagine Book of the Month - July 2011

By Nikki Gamble (from Just Imagine), posted 17th July 2011 at 2:03PM | Comments

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Wanted: The Perfect Pet by Fiona Roberton, published by Hodder Children's Books

Henry wants a dog. He wants a dog so badly. He wants a dog more than a frog (he already has hundreds of frogs and they don’t impress him one bit). He wants a dog more than a Cowboy outfit and even more than an all expenses paid trip to the moon. There’s only one thing to be done. Henry places an advert in the newspaper: Wanted the Perfect Pet… and he waits…

Meanwhile, far away a lonely duck sits waiting for someone to mail or call him. He’s so lonely, that he has to play ping pong all by himself and that's not much fun. Then one day he picks up the newspaper and he reads Henry’s advert, and that...

Just Imagine

Inspiring and enabling well-informed approaches to literacy teaching

By Nigel Godfrey, posted 10th July 2011 at 11:58AM | Comments

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Last Autumn the inspiring literacy coordaintor in my daughter's primary school introduced me to teacher, lecturer and writer Nikki Gamble, proprietor of the new Just Imagine Story Centre in Chelmsford. Nikki has helped our writer Craig Christie to select appropriate books for all our 2011/12 musicals, and I'm thrilled that she has agreed to write a regular "book of the month" column on this blog.

Just Imagine was set up by Nikki Gamble with the aim to inspire, motivate and enable creative and well-informed approaches to literacy teaching and children’s literature for all education professionals. I should add that they are a fantasticly well informed children's and education book...

Our plans for next school year

Three musicals and dance workshops

By Nigel Godfrey, posted 03rd July 2011 at 8:31PM | Comments

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As this blog entry will be incorporated in our last newsletter of this school year I thought it would be helpful to set out our published plans for next year.

We will be offering 3 musicals and dance workshops, and we have other plans in the pipeline.

Jump To It! follows in the footsteps of Rev It Up! and Jungle Bungle. It's is a literacy focused musical with a PHSE storyline. In this story schoolgirl Claire is addicted to her computer game, to the detriment of her studies and friendships. When she finds herself sucked in to the game carrying a bag of books, only the characters in those stories can save her. The show is available all year.

West End Pantomania is our...

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our programme

Stage design for our musicals

By Nigel Godfrey, posted 02nd July 2011 at 7:51PM | Comments

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When I am not working on West End in Schools, I spend around a day a week working as agent for some talented theatre designers, who between them design sets, lights, costumes and sound for large scale productions in London and up and down the country. The contrast between the scale and sophistication of their work, and the simplicity and clarity of our West End in Schools productions excites me, as both are right for their audiences.

In case you have not yet received one of our musicals in to your school we use very little set at all and just a small number of clear costumes to help the children understand the characters and tell them apart. We seat the children in two groups on the...

Tags:
process