“It’s the best training I have had in the last fifteen years”. Comment from a teacher who has been involved throughout the two-year project Nov 2022.
Travelling Light are a storytelling company. We believe children and young people’s voices should shape the way we work, and we aim to support self-expression, creativity and imagination. Post-Covid, we felt a shift in the creativity being explored in schools. Alongside this, teachers identified decreased levels of oracy, emotional literacy and wellbeing and a need for support. After more than 30 years of working with pupils and teachers, we wanted to interrogate the impact of our work. We knew that arts-based learning was positive for pupils and their learning, but we wanted to get specific - to see the impact on teacher practice and whole school culture.
Paul Hamlyn Foundation Teacher Development Fund provided the perfect opportunity for us to do so. We spent two years working with five primary schools in Bristol and decided to explore the following questions:
1. How effective is this model of arts-based delivery in developing teachers’ practice?
2. How can arts-based learning improve pupils’ oracy, emotional literacy and wellbeing?
3. How has the project led to a cultural shift within the whole school and its approach to the arts and arts-based teaching?
Although we had worked with teachers and schools regularly, this project felt unique as there was so much dedicated time. Time for knowledge exchange between teachers and artists, time for reflection and time to embed the work properly within a school. We knew that it could feel disruptive to take teachers out of their comfort zones and explore lessons with a more creative approach.
So, to ensure activity didn’t feel like “extra work” or “not relevant to learning objectives”, there was dedicated planning time outside of the classroom, for artists and teachers to shape every session around teachers’ existing plans and frameworks.
In practice, Travelling Light’s Artists delivered 408 sessions in school. We worked with a mixture of experienced and early career teachers – 35 in total. And by the end of the project, all teachers reported their confidence in using drama-based strategies across a range of subjects had grown from working with the artists (Question one).
This was particularly the case for Early Career Teachers and Apprentice Teachers, where the impact was significant.
“As an unqualified teacher in training it has been immense – the best CPD I have had. I’ve learnt how to plan; I’ve learnt about strategies which I can apply straight away; it’s also been really good for the children’s retrieval. It has come at the right moment for me.” Apprentice Teacher, Teacher Reflection Day: March 2023.
It wasn’t without a lot of learning along the way. We realised there was professional development happening on both sides – for the teachers and our team of artists.
In year two, we took on board feedback to incorporate more dedicated planning and reflection time. We also introduced artist led staff meetings to enable learning to be disseminated across the whole school and for this arts-based approach to feel prioritised.
Alongside the teacher development, over 900 pupils were involved in regular classroom-based activity for at least one term. For them, we know the activities were engaging, fun and offered a different approach to learning. What was fascinating to see was their acknowledgement of their teacher’s development.
They thoroughly enjoyed watching teachers become more creative, as well having the freedom to do so themselves. Thinking about Question two, we found that:
• The use of drama-based activities improved pupils’ learning.
• Pupils reported improved confidence, oracy and wellbeing, as well as enhanced recall of knowledge and concepts.
Additional discovery:
• Where teachers reported arts-based approaches were used, pupils’ retention of learning and understanding was significantly enhanced. This was particularly the case with children living with trauma.
• Teachers reported improved writing outcomes for pupils following Light Up School Learning lessons.
• Pupils reported working better in groups and that the climate of the classroom had positively changed. Most teachers recognised that pupils were more motivated in their learning. “It helps you learn. It makes you curious and eager to learn. It helps me remember.” Comment from a Year four pupil: July 2023
Our final inquiry question was about a shift in whole school culture. This took some time to navigate and is still ongoing, but we found that involvement of the whole staff through INSET sessions or staff meetings raised the profile of the project and provided all teachers with new strategies and games which they could use in their own classrooms. We know that staff meetings may seem like a ‘small act’ but they had significantly more impact than would be expected for three-five hours of Continuing Professional Development Learning activities across a year.
We found that introducing new arts-based strategies contributed to an increased excitement to share best practice; consequently, giving arts-based learning a higher profile across the school. What has been extremely beneficial and not possible without this grant, was to have an extended project length. The impact on pupils’ self confidence had a longitudinal benefit, even when pupils had not been part of the project beyond the first year.
Amongst the groups of pupils revisited from three different schools, the vast majority spoke of the impact of the project being retained. The pupils gave examples of how their increased confidence had been maintained, particularly in speaking out and making their voice heard, and in dealing with new social situations.
The Headteacher in one school observed there had been sustained impact on their confidence, oracy and resilience as they moved into Year six. “The project has achieved far more than we thought it would...what LUSL has helped us to explore is that you can use drama for teaching pretty much anything”. Headteacher, June 2023.
Watch our Light Up School Learning Year 1 Film video here.
Download our impact report here.
Throughout the two years we were ever mindful of the legacy of the project.
• How could the knowledge be retained?
• How would it be embedded in the schools?
• How could we continue to support teachers?
Through consultation, one request was for us to create an activity pamphlet that all teachers could access and could act as a resource to refer back to. This was created in digital and hard format, with QR links to reference videos. We would love this to be utilised by teachers that weren’t able to take part in this project too and you can access it here.
We will be continuing to advocate for this work and disseminate our learning as much as possible; alongside planning our next steps. As a children’s charity that approaches all our work with care, collaboration and consideration we have been taking some time to reflect and explore how we can develop our learning with partners further.
Our ethos is to respond and listen to need, and our schools have told us that Oracy was the key area for development. With this in mind, we are now planning to trial new approaches to using drama-based practice to support children’s oracy; particularly those experiencing educational disadvantage, from early years to Key Stage 2.
We are delighted to have been successful in receiving a 3-year Arts Based Learning grant from Paul Hamlyn Foundation, to continue this work with joyfulness and imagination from September 2024.
Lizzy Stephens, Artistic Director for Travelling Light Theatre Company. We would like to acknowledge our project evaluator Dr. Elaine Faull whose findings we have discussed.
To read more about the project please visit our website. Find Travelling Light on Instagram or Facebook.
Please be aware that a new round of PHF Teacher Development Fund opens in September 24 and closes on Wed 13th November 12 pm. For criteria, FAQs and details on how to apply, visit the PHF website https://www.phf.org.uk/funding/teacher-development-fund