Learning from Other schools – Jean Ramsey

Sharing Good Practice

I feel like it is a long time since I put finger to keyboard but hey, life is like that sometimes with just too much to squeeze in.

So where am I up to?

O yeah…I met a fantastic group of dedicated teachers when I took part in the directors’ training day for The Shakespeare for Schools Festival on 25th May the week before half term. What an inspirational bunch. We were from all over the South East and met up at The National Theatre’s rehearsal rooms near Waterloo. I was so excited to be out of school and learning something new. The day before, I consulted the very nice man at the station and he recommended I get the silly o’clock train (6:17 am from Bicester North to Waterloo) because I would not want to be late and I might have to let several tube trains go by because they would be so crowded. I arrived at 7:45 for a 9:00am kick off! But I had time to get a coffee and sit in the sunshine watching the Thames glide by; pinching myself with excitement…I am very easily pleased.

We had a fabulous time working with a professional actor and a director. The best part though was just sharing good practice with other colleagues because our school has never participated before and for some of the others this was their 6th or 7th year in succession. Some of the teachers were from special schools where the young people cannot speak far less remember lines by themselves. I am fortunate enough to work with a fantastic colleague, Louisa Hook at the special school behind us Bardwell. It is because of her encouragement that I have taken the plunge this year. We have a performance space with lights so for two years they have come to rehearse under our lights just so that it would not be so intimidating in the real thing. It did my year 10’s so much good to watch the young people from Bardwell performing their signed version of ‘Macbeth’. Some of the helpers stood behind the characters feeding them the lines and some just signed. They used soundscapes and musical instruments to great effect creating a truly spooky atmosphere. It was proper piece of theatre. We are doing ‘Macbeth’ too and Louisa is going to lend me her severed head!

Why is it so difficult to get out of school just for a day to learn so much from each other and other professionals from different fields? We now have this ‘rarely cover’ phenomenon which means your non contact lessons are hardly ever taken to cover absent colleagues and classes are taught by cover supervisors…we have two excellent supervisors. The downside though, is that if there are a lot of people away because of illness, insets have to be cancelled at short notice and tempers get VERY frayed. It does not just happen in our establishment all the wonderful people I met complained of the same things: hardly ever allowed out and too little time to rehearse because of the exam pressure…oh don’t get me started on that! That’s a whole new can of worms!

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