‘Creating “Schools of Recovery”’ (SoR) was a two-year project to explore and evaluate a partnership model with theatre at its heart developed around the work of Big Brum Theatre in Education Company. This project built on previous evaluation work, such as ‘Engaging, Exploring, Expressing: The case for Theatre in Education’ (Big Brum, 2019), and the ‘Human Spaces: An evaluative case study’ (Bolton, 2018). Despite this the SoR project happened in a very different, transient and emergent context with Big Brum continuing to hold true to their artistic policy around human beings having to know and re-know themselves, individually and socially.
Working with five primary schools across the West Midlands, the project employed a commission of experts in the fields of drama in education, special educational needs, and children from migrant communities. Additionally, the commission was joined by experts in teacher development and education, mentoring, and community-based organisations to explore the impact on Big Brum’s unique approach on those areas in a post-Covid time. Evaluations were formed through observations of performance, interviews with primary based leaders and teachers and children within those schools.
Project aims
Big Brum were clear in defining to the commission what they intended to learn from an evaluation of the project and Big Brum’s transformative approach. The aims of the project, and thus foci for the commission, included:
- Testing and extending a collaborative model of working to give value to the potential of this partnership model for Big Brum, schools with whom they worked, and the teachers and children within those schools.
- To explore the value and significance of Big Brum’s model and approach for schools in areas of socio-economic deprivation.
- To explore the value and significance of Big Brum’s model and approach for children who were disproportionately affected by the Coronavirus crisis.
- To build on previous important work developed from the To Be Project (2021) with a larger number of schools.
- To learn about how the SoR project might impact on specific children and groups of children, through to teachers’ professional development, and on to larger impacts, such as whole school and mentorship strategies.
- To learn about the impact of the SoR project on SEND children, newly arrived children and migrant children, and school communities more generally in socio-economically deprived areas.
Project team
- Dr Chris Bolton- Senior Lecturer at Birmingham City University Lead Evaluator
- Big Brum Theatre in Education Company
- Dr Adam Bethlenfalvy, Senior Lecturer at Károli Gáspár University and CEO at InSite Drama, Budapest
- Dr Konstantinos Amoiropoulos, Artistic Director of Diadromes, Athens
- Balbir Sohal and Gilroy Brown, Education Consultants
- Dr Gill Brigg, Visiting Senior Fellow at the University of Suffolk
- Rebecca Taylor, Senior Lecturer and Emma Davis, Lecturer at University College Birmingham
- Dr Rebecca Patterson, Senior Lecturer in Drama Education and Alison Ramsay, Primary Partnership Tutor at Manchester Metropolitan University
- Miranda Ballin, Artistic Director at SPARC, Tonypandy and Ian McAndrew, CEO and Joint Artistic Director at Think Creatively CIC, Ponyclun
Project impact
The impact of the project was significant in a number of areas demonstrated through the commission’s evaluations. Whilst the impact of the partnership model was strong this was not without its challenges!
Overall, the project found that theatre in education has the ability to create safe spaces and brave spaces for children and their teachers to learn together in an authentic way. These spaces, underpinned by Big Brum’s ‘9 Principles’, were found to be not only literal and physical spaces, but also social and pedagogical spaces in which those involved in the work could re-connect in a meaningful, affective, and powerful way. The project had a clear impact on children who had be adversely affected by the Coronavirus pandemic, their teachers and the wider school community.
Additionally, these safe and brave spaces gave rise to more authentic student voice, student agency, and more connected ‘human’ relationships within the school context. As part of this, the project found that teachers’ identity and practice had shifted and changed.
The project was funded by the Paul Hamlyn Foundation
For more information please contact Christopher.bolton@bcu.ac.uk