Convicted – a Victorian Mutiny-Helen
Duration of Workshop: 60 - 90 minutes
Target age group: Year 5
Class/group size: 30
Workshop Content:
It’ll do you good’, sneered the judge, his dusty wig askew. ‘After all, barely any bread in the colonies to steal’.
Captured and imprisoned for months at sea for a petty crime, 9 year-old George is on his way to the New World. Or is he? In the dark depths of a heaving, stinking Victorian convict ship George unwittingly instigates a mutiny. Can the young prisoners hope to overpower the ship’s crew?
Inspired by true events, this workshop will combine performative storytelling and drama. Children will be active participants, handing out justice and improvising in small groups to bring the story to life.
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Workshop Facilitator: John
Name of Workshop: What The Victorians Did TO Us!
Duration of Workshop: Flexible: tailored to suit
Target age group: Year 5
Class/group size: Flexible – single form offers maximum participation
Workshop Content:
In the course of this thoroughly-researched, fun and busy workshop, this writer and performing storyteller will start with a bleakly comical introduction to the justice system in Victoria’s Britain. The group will use this evidence to collectively create an original fictional tale so that by the end of the session we will have devised our own Victorian “broadside” ballad. We can also “top and tail the tale” with a short collectively-devised song. This hands-on and proactive workshop is aimed at giving the students an introduction to justice and punishment in the 19th century, which can be taken back to the classroom to act as a stimulus for further studies.
Subject to time constraints, the artist can also make an audio recording of the resulting original ballad/song which he can then edit at home and post/email the recording to the school in a format to suit, for use as a peer learning catalyst in the classroom.
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Workshop Facilitator: John
Name of Workshop: “You Astound Me!”
Duration of Workshop: Day-long (but flexible to suit)
Target age group: key stage 2
Class/group size: Flexible
Workshop Content:
Through a hands-on variety of games, exercises and strategies, John introduces the group to the diverse elements of the Victorian/Edwardian detective story. We create our own eccentric characters - detective, victim and, of course, the villain - as well as explore the apparent ingenious way in which our heroine or hero solves the case. We look at clues and other pieces of “evidence” (which can also be carried over into other areas of creative writing and storytelling making) before small groups within the class create their own oral “novels”, which can subsequently be further developed as written work in the classroom.
As part of any school day, John also offers a storytelling assembly for the whole school of a number of his own rhyming tales.
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Workshop Facilitator: Alice
Name of Workshop: Villainous Victorians
Duration of Workshop: 1 hr
Target age group: Year 5
Class/group size: 15 - 30
Workshop Content:
Here come 3 historical stories of terrible behaviour by our Victorian ancestors – murder most ‘orrid, business most devious and ghostly goings on that’ll give you the galloping conniptions.
As reporters on the Daily Dreadful newspaper, you must listen to the stories and then file your report – complete with illustration and headline - to your newspaper editor, quick-smart. Be the first to break the scandalous news to the nation. Stick to the facts or whip up your readers’ emotions: Which will you do, to see your name in print?
The class collaborate in small teams to write a very short piece of copy, come up with the headline and illustrate their report. They’ll need a mix of skills – listening carefully, writing interestingly, coming up with a stop-the-press headline and catching the eye with a dramatic image.
Duration of Workshop: 60 - 90 minutes
Target age group: Year 5
Class/group size: 30
Workshop Content:
It’ll do you good’, sneered the judge, his dusty wig askew. ‘After all, barely any bread in the colonies to steal’.
Captured and imprisoned for months at sea for a petty crime, 9 year-old George is on his way to the New World. Or is he? In the dark depths of a heaving, stinking Victorian convict ship George unwittingly instigates a mutiny. Can the young prisoners hope to overpower the ship’s crew?
Inspired by true events, this workshop will combine performative storytelling and drama. Children will be active participants, handing out justice and improvising in small groups to bring the story to life.
.....................................................................................................................................
Workshop Facilitator: John
Name of Workshop: What The Victorians Did TO Us!
Duration of Workshop: Flexible: tailored to suit
Target age group: Year 5
Class/group size: Flexible – single form offers maximum participation
Workshop Content:
In the course of this thoroughly-researched, fun and busy workshop, this writer and performing storyteller will start with a bleakly comical introduction to the justice system in Victoria’s Britain. The group will use this evidence to collectively create an original fictional tale so that by the end of the session we will have devised our own Victorian “broadside” ballad. We can also “top and tail the tale” with a short collectively-devised song. This hands-on and proactive workshop is aimed at giving the students an introduction to justice and punishment in the 19th century, which can be taken back to the classroom to act as a stimulus for further studies.
Subject to time constraints, the artist can also make an audio recording of the resulting original ballad/song which he can then edit at home and post/email the recording to the school in a format to suit, for use as a peer learning catalyst in the classroom.
...............................................................................................................................
Workshop Facilitator: John
Name of Workshop: “You Astound Me!”
Duration of Workshop: Day-long (but flexible to suit)
Target age group: key stage 2
Class/group size: Flexible
Workshop Content:
Through a hands-on variety of games, exercises and strategies, John introduces the group to the diverse elements of the Victorian/Edwardian detective story. We create our own eccentric characters - detective, victim and, of course, the villain - as well as explore the apparent ingenious way in which our heroine or hero solves the case. We look at clues and other pieces of “evidence” (which can also be carried over into other areas of creative writing and storytelling making) before small groups within the class create their own oral “novels”, which can subsequently be further developed as written work in the classroom.
As part of any school day, John also offers a storytelling assembly for the whole school of a number of his own rhyming tales.
......................................................................................
Workshop Facilitator: Alice
Name of Workshop: Villainous Victorians
Duration of Workshop: 1 hr
Target age group: Year 5
Class/group size: 15 - 30
Workshop Content:
Here come 3 historical stories of terrible behaviour by our Victorian ancestors – murder most ‘orrid, business most devious and ghostly goings on that’ll give you the galloping conniptions.
As reporters on the Daily Dreadful newspaper, you must listen to the stories and then file your report – complete with illustration and headline - to your newspaper editor, quick-smart. Be the first to break the scandalous news to the nation. Stick to the facts or whip up your readers’ emotions: Which will you do, to see your name in print?
The class collaborate in small teams to write a very short piece of copy, come up with the headline and illustrate their report. They’ll need a mix of skills – listening carefully, writing interestingly, coming up with a stop-the-press headline and catching the eye with a dramatic image.