FTR TXT at St Cleer and Pensilva

Pupils from St Cleer and Pensilva primary schools in Cornwall developed their emotional learning, awareness of complex subjects, IT, history, geography, music and co-ordination skills when they visited the imaginary eco-systems of Waterworld and Junkworld in a project called FTR TXT recently.

Year 4 and 5 children from St Cleer Primary School and Pensilva Primary School collaborated in producing the performance FTR TXT – working for seven weeks o­n the ecologically-inspired show, with Creative Partnerships ’ Sarah Waller and a team of creative practitioners.

The pupils performed FTR TXT twice o­n March 18th at Pensilva Millennium Hall in the centre of the South East Cornwall village, mixing puppetry, dance, multimedia, music and animation. Pupils worked o­n building Waterworld and Junkworld by recycling rubbish – exploring the concepts of waste and ‘found art ’ at the same time.

Teaching was transformed in the run-up to the show. St Cleer Primary School Yr 4 class teacher and music co-ordinator Joseph Monkes said: “It encompassed the whole curriculum.”

He added: “The stimulus for creative writing was absolutely fantastic. Also, co-ordination skills and the stretching of their attention span – you couldn’t have done that much in a whole term-full of things.”

Prior to the show, both schools took part in an eco-debate and a mock- election, where Junkboy – o­ne of the lead characters in FTR TXT -was elected leader of Junkworld. Mr Monkes added: “Although the play itself didn’t have a lot of spoken word in it, their emotional learning has been absolutely enormous. As their class teacher, this week the buzz in the classroom has been amazing.”

“And the play was a memorable thing that they’ll remember for the rest of their lives.”

Helen Tiplady, o­ne of the creative practitioner team working o­n FTR TXT, said: “Because the team and the school had lots of time and regular production meetings over the development period, the school staff took real ownership of the work – we ’d start something in our sessions and the teachers would continue and develop o­n it, so it was being rehearsed, grown and really embedded into the school all the way through.”

Kit Sharpe, a graduate teacher at St Cleer Primary School, said his attitudes to teaching had been changed by taking part in FTR TXT .“That ’s the first time I’ve done anything like this and it would be fair to say when it first started I thought it would be total carnage and now afterwards I ’d happily do this again o­n my own.” He added,, “It ’s very unusual to go into the classroom and find that the children are absolutely desperate to start, and we have had that for about three weeks.”

It is hoped that the schools will reprise the joint performance at Sterts Open Air Theatre in July. Meanwhile, creative work continues in the classroom o­n the foundations laid by FTR TXT.

Joel Nash, 8, of St Cleer Primary School, said: “I’ve always liked acting and it ’s given me some more ideas.”

Tyler Clift, 9, of St Cleer Primary School, said: “I found it a little hard remembering all the stuff to do, but I liked how we were joining in with Pensilva School and that it was not just St Cleer.”

Creative Partnerships ’ Sarah Waller, partnered the schools with film- making, special effects and dance practitioners and also the Local Education Authority, which gave both schools a grant to develop ways of putting creativity back into the curriculum.

“This project was about combining cross-curricular creativity – how you could use this way of working with dance, music and film-making to cover geography, history and IT,” she said.

“Because they can express what they have learnt in a different way it very often surprises both themselves and their teachers about the real depth of their understanding. You can get some very grown-up, sophisticated ideas coming out.”

She said that not o­nly was it a new way of learning for the children involved, but a new way of working with the practitioner team, who worked o­n their professional development simultaneously. “Teachers were working alongside us to team-teach and take those ideas o­n to the rest of the curriculum.”

The eco-themes – which meant the pupils raided scrap yards to build FTR TXT ’s recycled set -have of developing creativity, added Sarah.

“The concept of creating something that costs nothing is something that if you are trying to inspire schools to work creatively, shows you don ’t have to spend a fortune,” Sarah said. “It ’s the application of imagination that is the most important thing.”

For more information about the FTR TXT project you can contact Sarah Waller at swaller@cornwall.gov.uk