Drama / Storytelling Practitioner Call Out

Create, Speak Thrive,

Storytelling and/or Drama Artist Call Out

Trestle Theatre Company are looking for an extra artist to join us for year 2 of our 2-year project ‘Create, Speak, Thrive: Bringing Words to Life.’

The ideal candidate will have experience of delivering drama and storytelling workshops in schools and working closely with teachers. We are looking for artists who are willing to work with us and the teacher-researchers on the project in an enquiry-led way and who are ready to jump straight in as they will be joining us halfway through the project. You can find out more about what we have been doing so far and watch a short film HERE.

We welcome applications from all people regardless of race, ethnic or national origin, religious or political beliefs, disability, gender, age, sexual orientation, social or marital status or personal circumstances. If you would like to discuss any requirements for application please do contact us.

Project Description

The project has been running since September 2022 and will complete in August 2024 working in partnership with 7 schools across Luton and Stevenage, the Royal Opera House East and the University of Hertfordshire (UH) to explore creative approaches to speech, language and communication needs (SLCN) using drama and storytelling techniques. Following a pilot study, the partners devised a co-creation, enquiry-led research model that enables mutual learning and development. Due to artist availability, we are now looking for an extra artist to join our team for year 2.

Our project is focused on using drama and storytelling to test and develop a universal approach to language acquisition addressing SLCN in Primary Schools and providing teachers with new creative pedagogies. These needs were specifically identified by teachers in Stevenage and Luton and have arisen from existing inequalities being worsened by the pandemic.

In year one through a small series of facilitated co-creation sessions and CPDL sessions, the partner schools and artists co-created several creative responses to this need. Each school was partnered with an artist to test these approaches and gather feedback.

In year two each school and artist partnership will develop their own responses to test in their settings based on need and questions arising from year one. There will be accompanying CPDL to support. Each school will then test these approaches and have an opportunity to reflect and share learning. The CPDL will aim to extend both the artist and teacher-researcher practice allowing for open exploration and mutual learning, it will cover practical approaches, evaluation, speech and language knowledge and reflective practices.

Project Delivery

Each school is partnered with an artist to work closely with the teacher-researcher to implement and deliver testing in school. Each school has two members of staff leading on the project in their school. One is a senior leader and one is the teacher-researcher working directly with the artist. The Speech and Language Specialist, and Evaluators work across the project.

The project is led by a Steering Group who focus on the strategic planning and a Delivery Group who plan, deliver and reflect on the project aims. The Project Manager reports on progress to the Steering Group and manages the delivery group consisting of the teacher-researchers and artists from each school and the SLCN specialist. This group is chaired by the Project Manager and meet quarterly.

The steering group consists of a senior leader from each school, Trestle’s Creative Director, and ROH. Its role is to ensure the agreed milestones are met. This group will meet quarterly.

Other smaller-scale day-to-day planning and creative meetings between those delivering workshops or training and observing the activity with the children are likely to go on at the discretion and convenience of those involved as required.

Process
Please visit https://www.trestle.org.uk/opportunities and fill out both the application and Equal Opportunities forms to tell us about your practice and experience and email it to rhian@trestle.org.uk by midnight on 28th August 2022. We will be meeting with prospective artists on Thursday, August 31st. Please call Helen Barnett, Creative Director on 01727 850950 if you would like to discuss the role.

We look forward to receiving your application.

The Trestle Team

Terms and Conditions

Fee: We will be contracting artists on a freelance basis. The commitment will be for the equivalent in hours of approximately 15 days across the year per school partnership and this will be spread out in line with the project timeline equating to roughly 4 days in term 1, 8 days in term 2 (including 22 hours of delivery in school) and 3 days in term 3. This is subject to change and is likely to be spread out across half days and shorter meeting times as it includes contact/delivery time and non-contact time for planning, evaluation and training. We will aim to have dates and times confirmed a half term in advance. The key dates you will need to be available in Autumn 23 are as follows.

Monday 11th September 3-5pm (online)

Tuesday 3rd October 1-3pm (online)

Tuesday 7th November 3-5pm (in person in Luton/Stevenage TBC)

Tuesday 28th November 1-3pm (in person in Luton/Stevenage TBC)

Monday 11th December 1-3pm (in person in Luton/Stevenage TBC)

Day rate= £200 (roughly £3000 per school partnership, depending on availability there may be an opportunity to work with 2 schools)

For more information visit https://www.trestle.org.uk/opportunities