Ship of Dreams - film & moving image projects - South West England, UK

Ship of Dreams

The Ship of Dreams performance project at Tregolls School in December was the culmination of a year-long process of innovative whole-school change, spearheaded by new Head Laura Galvin.

Taking the school ’s historical emblem – a tall--ship harking back to Truro ’s historical maritime links – the project reinvented the ship as a vision for the future that focused the ideas of the entire school, from dinner ladies and teaching assistants to teachers and from the oldest to the youngest pupils, navigating together towards a positive future.

Asking simple but key questions such as: ‘Where ’s it going?’ and ‘What ’s its cargo?’ provoked o­ngoing debate and shared ideas about the Ship that soon became focused in ‘We ’re all in it together’ and ‘It ’s carrying all of our hopes for the future.’

The Ship has through this process become a long-term creative metaphor for the school, but it also helped describe a real creative journey through the school ’s spaces when audiences were led through transformed classrooms and corridors to witness the children ’s interpretations of this ‘cargo of hope ’ through dance, film, words and visual arts – stories told through hilarious shadow plays, moving dance pieces, rich installations of drawings and 3 dimensional models, trunks of pirates ’ treasure, ship ’s cats and mice (the youngest class), sea stories told with innovative blue-screen techniques, and with so much imagination.

Some talented young people emerged through the work, especially two young boys whose natural talent and grace in movement was captured o­n film and formed a stunning centrepiece for the performance.

The Ship of Dreams also worked to bring the local community into the school to share in the celebrations of their children ’s creativity, marking a clear change in the fortunes of a school that was placed under special measures several years ago after a bad OFSTED report. Head Laura Galvin is clear that this whole process has been all about taking risks, and has worked extremely hard to develop a new sense of optimism and strength in collaborative working with her talented teaching team and across the school over the past year.

In close collaboration with Creative Partnerships the school has been able to link with creative practitioners to support the risk-taking ideas and push the collaborative approaches even further. Those bringing their creative talents o­n board the Ship of Dreams included Amanda Lorens, Amanda Harris, Steven Paige, Annamaria Murphy, Rebecca Turk-Richards and Sarah Waller, who will retain links with the school through their work.

Sue Plechowicz, the school ’s learning and teaching co-ordinator responsible for links between subject areas and creativity, has been a key part of the changes and is keen to look long-term at how it can be sustained. She says, “The staff have all said they feel more confident, there ’s now a sense of a collective vision, and a real team spirit after the complex and pretty difficult process that ’s been worked through.”

Laura Galvin says, “I really want to sustain the increase in my teachers ’ confidence and their belief in their own professionalism. I want to empower them as much as I can, working together, instead of working in isolation without support.” She adds:: “OFSTED reported 25% of our children said learning was not enjoyable a year ago. We have just re- tested the same statistic and found that figure to now be less than 3%. No child is going to want to learn if they are feeling worthless, and we owe it to every child to find the key to unlocking their learning.” In fact at the most recent OFSTED visit,, o­ne class ’s out-of-school creative learning session with practitioner Oliver West was described by the inspector as “outstanding.” We think that says it all.