Lesson 10 - 12.07.16 - Final Day

Today was our final day with the children at St. Giles, and also with our community groups.

We all met up at the school and waited to be let in. Once we got to the library, we were quickly sent to our classrooms. When I arrived at the new classroom, they were cutting out bunting and stapling them to a piece of string. I sat with a girl and helped her to cut out the bunting, while talking to her about music and films. After cutting out 2 pieces of bunting, she told me she was too tired to do anymore, as it was too hard for her; I found this so surprising as it's usually seen as a simple task therefore it really showed me how we take so many things and abilities for granted.

I then helped her to staple to bunting onto the string, which she also found difficult therefore I felt really helpful to her as I was helping her to do it.

After creating bunting, the children went outside for their break. While they were on their break, Hannah and I left Vlad - who was playing with the children - to go and set up. We asked a teacher for any paints and she gave us a big cart of paints and materials. We cut up the paper and drew round Ben and Vlad's hands, since they were bigger so the children would have more room to decorate and, so the children could go straight into decorating them instead of wasting time drawing round them, which some of them may have found difficult.

When the children came back in, we made sure everything was set up and I, with the help of Hannah and Vlad, led the game of 'Guess the Name', which they found very easy as we ensured the presentation wasn't too difficult for them. As soon as that was finished, we got straight into painting.

The children really enjoyed the painting! We decided to keep the painting going for as long as they would still enjoy it (which was until the end). I kept making new hands for them to decorate as they were going through the hands really quickly! The three of us sat with them and helped to decorate the hands; later on, Vlad and I decided to decorate our own and let the children help us. As I looked around, Hannah was getting on really well with a girl who wasn't very confident while Vlad was entertaining the boys! I could see the children cheering up while we each gave them attention.

After cleaning up the mess, we all sat down and played some relaxing games to cool down, including One Word Story and I-Spy. 

At the end of the day, Hannah, Vlad and I went back to the classroom to collect the dry hands and stick them onto the tree. There was no one in the classroom when we returned so I hope that they enjoy the tree we created for them and they keep it as a memory of our visit.

After lunch, we all went to watch the dress run of their show, 'Our Voice', which was really moving. I could really tell how challenging it was for all of them to create however I could also tell how much fun they were all having! I really liked how each child had their own moment where they were the stars. There was a clip showing their prom, which I found really hard to watch with dry eyes as it showed me how happy they all are at this school and how they all don't let their disability define them.

This community project has taught me a lot about taking things for granted and making sure that we always make sure we give back. I have met some amazing people in this group so I am very happy we have done this.

Lesson 9 - 05.07.16

Today's lesson was another simple lesson.

We got into our groups to plan our next workshop, which would be next Tuesday. Since Hannah and I didn't have our groups again, we decided to get into a group together (I took Nicole's place in the group so she would be taking my place in my other group).

We spent an hour thinking of ideas that we could do. This proved to be really hard, especially because I didn't know the group therefore I was unaware of the group's abilities. We bounced through many different ideas while Googling simple game suggestions.

Together, Hannah and I came up with the idea of 'Guess the Name' where we would have a presentation filled with pictures of celebrities, movies and songs for them to guess. I think they will enjoy the game if we make the pictures very simple and unchallenging.

Since Hannah said that they enjoyed painting and colouring, I came up with the idea of a tree of hands where they would decorate them how they want and we'll stick them on for them to then stick up on the wall.

If we had time left over, we thought that we could use materials, such as bottles, to make instruments and we could create a song (or put a song in the background for them to play along to) so that they can be involved in a song creation.

We listed some games at the bottom to play if any of the activities didn't work out so we could go to them for rescuing and support.

We then came up with a plan:

In the lesson, Siobhan spent a while giving us a very detailed idea of what to include in our presentations. I found this to be really helpful as I was struggling with my presentation.

After we created the plan, we were then given time to create our presentations and work on them.

Lesson 8 - 01.07.16

Today's lesson was a very simple lesson. After Vicky came, we got into our groups and began to look at the strengths and weaknesses of our workshops. Since Andy and Lydia weren't here, and Hannah's group wasn't in either, Hannah and I decided to work together since we had similar workshop plans.

Most of the activities we did in my workshop went well although I did realise that the Catchphrase game proved to be quite challenging for most of the children, and teachers, therefore I said that I would remove it for next time since it excluded a lot of children. Also, I think that, instead of 'Guess the Song?', we should have something like 'Guess the name?' where it has celebrities, movies and songs so that more people can be included and feel more confident in calling out.

Hannah said that the 'Pass the Parcel' type activity that she did didn't go down very well as it was very repetitive so the children got bored and began getting sassy, trying to impress one another. She also said that the sensory activity went down well, which was the same response as to when my group did it.

After this, we decided that we would cut out Catchphrase and Pass the Parcel, alter the Guess the Song game, and keep the sensory activity.

Vicky then left us to work on our presentations upstairs, which I found to be helpful as she briefed us so we weren't confused and it gave me time to do the work that I was struggling to find time for.

Lesson 7 - 28.06.16 - Workshop Day

Today was the day that we performed our workshops to one another.

The day began when we all met up at St. Giles. The majority of us arrived on time however there were some late comers. Before meeting the children once again, we were told to avoid physical contact with one another as it may encourage the children to want things like hugs; this was a shock to me as I'd never thought of avoiding this in front of the children. After being briefed by Katie in the library, we all went to our different classrooms. 

Before break, we were sat in the classrooms, helping the children to learn their lines and songs. The script was quite basic, looking at it from a theatre student's perspective, however it was very tough for the students to remember their lines and to say them. This really hit home for me as I realised how lucky I was to have the ability to act without many problems. Since some of the students weren't in, Lydia and I were asked to help with reading out some of the lines. Since Andy was late showing up, he didn't have a role to read out however I do feel that we all worked together to bring a positive and supporting vibe into the room.

After break, we began our workshop. We asked for them to sit in a semicircle, while Lydia, Andy and myself stood at the front. In the introduction, I found myself to be quite awkward and not as confident while were doing the introductions. I think this is because I have never done something like this before or worked with children with disabilities before.

When we were doing 'Guess the Song', mainly led by me, we seemed to get a good reaction from one of the boys however, since we had not properly prepared this, it was quite stop-start therefore I think it was quite hard for some of the children to stay engaged. I was very surprised when they all responded to a High School Musical song as I forgot how similar in age they are to us therefore I didn't think they would know it. When we played some of the songs, some of the children would get up and dance, which was a nice response as it showed that they were enjoying the music and the exercise.

The next exercise, Catchphrase, did not have such a good response. The children were attempting to guess the catchphrases however they did find it quite difficult to get them right. One of the boys was still trying to guess them while the rest of the children were slowly fading out and not guessing. The teachers were even struggling to guess them (along with me) as they were too difficult. Lydia then, luckily, jumped in and was giving clues, trying to help them out. For next time, I would not keep Catchphrase in the workshop as it did not seem as enjoyable for the children as I'd thought it would be.

Our next exercise had a great response! It was the sensory exercise in which I led. I put random sensory items into the box and asked them to put their hands in to guess what they were. At the beginning, the children were following the rules and not taking the items out of the box, however, after a while, they found it funny to take the items out of the box as they found it hilarious to cheat! It was fun to watch them have fun and laugh as it really showed me how successful the exercise was. One of the girls would take the items out and keep them with her, building up a collection. I was proud to lead an exercise with such a positive response so I would keep this exercise in for next time.

As we had half an hour left of the workshop, we just put some music on and let them dance. We took requests while we were going around the room dancing and talking to them one-on-one if they were feeling uncomfortable to join in.

I feel like this workshop was very successful however, next time, I would ensure to make it more slick and refined, while also removing exercises, such as Catchphrase, that may challenge the group too much.

Lesson 6 - 24.06.16

Today was the day that we got into our groups to plan our workshop for the children at St Giles.

Andy, Lydia and I sat down (with Hannah because the rest of her group wasn't there) and planned our workshop together. For a while, it was quite hard to come up with ideas since the children in the classrooms all have different abilities and interests so it was hard to tailor a game that would suit everyone.

Eventually, we decided that we would open our workshop with a simple exercise where we learn about each other. We would ask them their names, likes and interests. By doing this, we will get to know each other, while making the children become more comfortable around us, ready for our workshop to begin.

After getting to know each other, we will then move onto the next exercise, which is 'Guess the Song'. Since they love music, I came up with the idea that we would play some popular songs that they could guess the names to. I think this will be very good since they love music and, if we play songs we know they will like, hopefully, we will get a positive response. It was quite challenging trying to find popular songs since neither one of us in our group really listened to popular music. In the end, we came up with a list containing, One Dance by Drake, The Lazy Song by Bruno Mars, Best Song Ever by One Direction, and so on. Hopefully, we have chosen them well enough that we will get the response we want in return.

Last time we visited the school, we found out that two of the boys in our group were very interested in the gameshow, Catchphrase. Because of this, we decided that our main exercise would be a PowerPoint presentation with a string of catchphrases that we would get from the Internet. A problem that may occur is that they may be too hard for them (since they were very hard for me) however I think it will go really well since the two boys expressed a massive interest in the programme and stated that they watched it at home very often.

Lydia and I came up with the final exercise that would be putting sensory things in a box and guessing what they were. I also think this exercise will be effective; this is because the school told us that the majority, if not all, of the children respond positively to sensory things, as they even have Sensory Therapy. Lydia and I will share the responsibility of getting together some materials to put in the box, while I will take on the responsibility to lead this exercise.

If we have any spare time at the end, we will put some music on and everyone can have a dance, which hopefully will be enjoyable for everyone if everyone gets involved.

Together, I think this workshop will be a big success if all goes to plan however, since we have not prepared for any negative responses, I am a bit hesitant if anything negative arises.

Lesson 5 - 21.06.16 - Performance Day

Today was the day we went to St Giles to perform the piece we had created for them. We went straight into rehearsing the piece; Siobhan made sure that everything that we had created in the space of two weeks was to a good enough standard.

The piece that she spent the most time on was the dance piece that she had previously said was really messy. When I was sitting on the sides and observing, I could not see any faults, since I am not a dancer so I don't have an eye for dance mistakes, however after they responded to her feedback, I could see the piece had improved massively! One of the changes that she made was that, instead of a group of them spinning in the same direction, they would mirror each other; at first, I wasn't sure since I enjoyed the idea of them all going in the same way however after seeing it, I could see the piece improving a lot.

We then ran the piece. 'Can You Hear St Giles Sing?' was completely fine as we all knew what we were doing and it was clear that everyone was fluent on their signs for the ending. We then went onto rehearsing 'At The End Of The Day', which needed a lot of work on timings, especially for the last verse.

After cleaning that piece up, we ran the whole piece before getting lunch and making our way to St Giles. When we were on our way, we were all playing games, which showed me how comfortable we all now feel around each other after playing those bonding games on Friday, which makes me think that we should've done them on the first day of meeting each other.

When we arrived, we could hear the children singing in one room as they were practicing for their Jack Petchy performance that night. When the curtain was pulled back, revealing us, I heard one of them say in shock, 'Wow I can't believe the BRITs were watching us!', which really made me think how highly they look at us and our school! It also made me want to do a good performance for them!

We had time for one through before our audience was let in. We were told that we were going to perform it twice with a short interval in between. The run through went well and I was ready to perform to our audience.

Our first run was successful as it all seemed to flow well. We all had our cues well-timed and some of our moves got very good reactions from the audience (for example, Dom and Tasha's lifts sparked numerous shocked reactions). A con to our first performance was that Vlad elbowed me in the face when it was our first transition; I hope no one noticed this as I couldn't help but react to the pain. 

During the interval, Tasha and I decided to go into the audience and talk to a few students. They seemed like they thoroughly enjoyed the performance as they called it 'extraordinary'! One of the students couldn't speak so they just held mine and Tasha's hands to show their appreciation; this really showed me the reason of why we were doing this performance.

The second time we performed it was even better than the first. At the end of the performance, they all joined in in the dance and we all had a dance together. I could tell they were enjoying it as, when we got closer to the children, they became more alive and active. The teachers said this was the first time they had done something like this and it went so well.

In concludion, I am proud of our group for doing these successful performances as we fulfilled our purpose and achieved our goals.

Lesson 4 - 17.06.16

In today's lesson, we planned to go through our performance for next Tuesday and refine it however Vicky, our teacher, was not in therefore we were left to our own devices to sort out our show.

We first ran the show a few times, refining it and making it better so that it was at a good enough standard that we would be able to take the show to St Giles and be happy with the outcome. We did this for about an hour and a half and then we went on break.

When we came back, we decided that, because we didn't have a full cast and we didn't know everyone completely, we would do some bonding exercises and games to get to know one another. I found this really enjoyable as I learnt a lot about the people who I'm working with on this project.

Lesson 3 - 14.06.16

Today's session was mainly focused on refining our performance ideas while adding more to the piece.

While the dance group expanded, taught each other the routine and rehearsed, Vlad, Nicole, Andy and myself began coming up with ideas for a theatrical piece to put in the middle of the song 'At The End Of The Day'. This was a very long process! For some reason, neither one of us could think of a good idea. Since we are a group of mixed strands, I think we were putting too much pressure on ourselves to come up with a good idea so that we could 'prove' ourselves as actors. We began experimenting with physical theatre however we found it hard to find a piece that we could involve the moves in. We then came up with the idea of a treasure hunt that we would go around as pirates with a map in search of how to express ourselves creatively; again, this idea didn't work out.

After a while, we decided to sit in a circle and talk in hope we would come up with an idea. Shockingly, we got a good idea when talking about Kim Kardashian! We came up with an idea to use balloons. I came up with the idea to write creative ways to express yourself on the balloons, such as 'Dance' 'Acting' etc. Vlad came up with the idea that we are all sad until Courteney turns on music and hands us the balloons (as if they were 'keys' to finding happiness). Together as a group, we all thought that we could invite the audience onstage to dance together and go into the audience to dance with them! Instead of having this piece in the middle of 'At The End Of The Day', Nicole and I had the idea to have it as a finale of our whole piece; I think think this works better as a finale as it ends the piece on a really positive note and delivers the message we were sent to portray that we can express ourselves through the arts. The song we all decided on was 'Happy' by Pharrel Williams as it's a happy, positive and popular song that the children will probably know the lyrics to so they can sing along easily and enjoy themselves.

For the rest of the session, we rehearsed our piece and edited it. One of the main things we did was include transitions between each piece. Our transition between 'Can You Hear St. Giles Sing?' and 'At The End Of The Day' is that Carys and Ben are talking about going to lesson, causing them to break away and knocking people, creating a chain reaction of movement into our next positions. Carys bumps me, who then bumps Vlad, which then leads us into our positions. Since I am not a dancer for the 'I Dreamed A Dream' piece, my transition to go offstage is to walk backwards carefully offstage; this transition makes me anxious as the dancers are sinking to the floor while I am doing this therefore I am afraid I will step on them or injure myself. Other than this, I like having these transitions as it really makes the piece look more professional and slick. After the dance piece, the dancers go offstage while the finale piece go onstage and get into position.

I felt really included in the ideas process today as I found myself pitching many ideas that were taken onboard. One of my ideas was for the ending of the 'At The End Of The Day' piece when we rise in the final stanza; my idea was that we rise of the penultimate line and turn sideways to the turn our heads sharply on the final line. When I said it, I wasn't very confident in my idea but when Ben and everyone agreed, I felt really good about my ideas that I continued to pitch ideas confidently for the rest of the lesson.

Because the last stanza of 'At The End Of The Day' was really hard for all of us to say, Ben spent some time helping us with tongue twisters and warming up our faces. After these exercises, I felt a lot better about delivering the stanza that I sung it with ease and confidence.

I think this session today was really productive in the sense that we did so much and also I found out a lot about myself as I began to become more confident in pitching ideas, which I usually hesitate from saying as I don't think they will be accepted.

Lesson 2 - 09.06.16

Today's session was led by Vicky. Since Vicky had not visited St Giles, it was very different to working with Siobhan since we had experienced the school together.

We started off by playing games to warm up. The games we played were: walking around and getting into pairs to complete an instruction said by her (eg. walk a dog), get unto groups of a certain number, sharks, and human knot. These games included getting into random groups with people we may not know therefore I think we played these games in order to become more familiar with working with one another. It did work when I kept pairing up with Ben, who I had only met on Tuesday, so we got to know each other better when we were trying to win.

We then split off into two groups and brainstormed what we could do for our short performance for St Giles. My group thought a lot about adding comedy and song, while also using emotions to show that we all experience ups and downs and they are not alone. We fed back to each other and the other group thought a lot similar to ours!

We all decided that we should include some of the songs they have altered from Les Miserables for their performance of 'Our Time'. We all decided on: At The End Of The Day, Do You Hear St Giles Sing?, and I Dreamed A Dream. We split into three small groups and took charge of a song each. My group was in charge of 'Do You Hear St Giles Sing?'

We were brainstoming ideas for a while until we thought that we could sign some of the song so that it could include children who rely more on sign language. We also had the idea to hand out items to the audience (such as, small sponge footballs, football scarves, etc) since some children like to feel soft items as it relaxes them. Also, it will include them in the performance and it will make them feel comfortable enough to join in with the song. Carys looked at the sign language and she decided that we should only sign certain words so it won't overwhelm us or the audience.

The next step was to teach everyone our routine and the signs. Everyone was a bit confused at the start however, with practice, I can see all of us getting the hang of it soon. We developed our piece as we were running it as I had the idea for Carys to start singing before all of us however we then added Hannah into the beginning so that they won't get drowned out and also to show unity. After they sing the first verse, the rest of us then come from the audience and begin singing together, and eventually begin to sign the last two verses. I think our piece works really well to show unity while adding fun and music.

We then learnt the 'At The End Of The Day' group's routine. Again, this got developed at we were rehearsing it. The idea was that we all come on, clumping together, expressing opinions of school (mostly negative) and then when the song drops, we all drop to the floor and rise in groups to begin singing. We added movement to the lines 'At the end of the day, you're another day colder, and the shirt on your back doesn't keep off the chill' and we then huddle with another person and show we are cold. We then turn to the side in a sort of sailor pose for the line that they changed 'And the teachers hurry past' and then we do the mocking nose sign for 'they don't hear the little ones crying'. Lastly, Dom dramatically faints for 'And detentions coming on fast, ready to kill' where we all dramatically react. I love this piece as it adds so much comedy in while also changing some of the lyrics to relate to school life.

The last group didn't include the rest of us as it was just a dance piece. It was amazing to watch as it was so different to the rest of our pieces but it was so good!! There was an idea to have someone singing 'I Dreamed a Dream' however I think it would be just find if we used a track on top and just had the dancers.

I think we've come up with such a strong idea that, hopefully, it will go down really well with the children after we have refined it!

Lesson 1 - 07.06.16

Today was the start of our Community projects.

We were told by Siobhan that we would be creating a short performance and workshops for the children at St Giles, which is a school for physically and mentally disabled children.

Without knowing much about the project, we took a trip to St Giles, giving us all a chance to get to know each other since we are from different strands. Once we reached our destination, we signed in and were taken to a room where we were briefed on what was acceptable/unacceptable, and also what we were going to be doing. We were told that we weren't to show midriffs or shoulders as it was not professional for the environment we were in; because we were not briefed about this previously, I had to chuck a jumper on top as my outfit was not ideal.

We then went to have brunch with some of the children, giving us a chance to get to know them before working with them. At first, I found it really hard to talk to the children as I didn't know what to say but after a while, I slowly became more and more comfortable with what was happening. The children were very different to one another but what really surprised me was how happy they were and how much they loved this school. There was a variety when it came it disabilities as there were some children who were in wheelchairs but could communicate while there were others who could not speak but they could understand what was being said. I was overcome with emotions as I wasn't sure what to expect beforehand.

The adults acted like a mouthpiece for some students as they understood what they wanted and what they meant however, as we were new to all of this, we weren't able to understand them. It was nice to speak to the adults as it helped me to understand their roles in the school and how much they care about the children.

After brunch, we were split into groups of three and we were taken to different classrooms. I was put into a group with Andy and Lydia who I don't really know. Because I didn't know the children in the classroom either, I began feeling quite isolated however I slowly eased into talking with them. We all had a discussion, getting to know each other, which was really interesting since I learnt that the children have so much in common with me in terms of dreams and hopes. The class I was put into was quite an able class in the way that most of them could communicate and some could walk without wheelchair assistance. 

On the way back to school, we were all discussing our different groups and it was really interesting to hear how we all had very different experiences with the children in our classes as they all had different abilities however the one thing that everyone had in common was that they loved music! Because of this, we have realised that we need to include music in our piece to ensure to keep them entertained.

After lunch, we got back into our Community class at school and had discussions about our first impressions and our experiences with the children to then create these mind maps:

To finish off our session, the year 13 who was helping us today held a workshop for us. We started by playing Name Tennis but then it turned into thinking about how we can accomodate the games so that everyone at St Giles will be able to play them. This was really hard because everyone at the school was very different and had different abilities to one another. My group looked at the game where you're at a party and someone walks in with a emotion (eg. sadness) and everyone has to copy the emotion. We thought that we could use coloured cards to show a specific emotion so that it is more visual and easier for the children to understand.

To finish off today, we gave each other a compliment to end on a good note.