“It made me more than happy.” Child’s comment in evaluation focus group for Kindling.
It’s celebrating their childhood isn’t it. It’s making their childhood years special and memorable because these years are so fleeting really and they only have one shot at childhood so we feel it is our duty and our privilege to make it as good as it can possibly be. Teacher, evaluation for Kindling.
“We can reignite the creative compassion of our communities if we think differently.” Ken Robinson
The purpose of these pieces of writing are so Ori and myself can take a long look into how and why the children are empowered to create an event that is simply “breathtaking”. The work breathes, it allows the participants’ imaginations to breathe and those who are witness to it find it breathtaking. All this breathing is the stuff of life. All living things breathe, one way or another. Taking breath is literally to inspire (“2. breathe in (air); inhale. “They can expand their lungs and inspire enough gas to satisfy oxygen requirements””). The work enhances lives and creates new life possibilities. We are looking at how this work has inspired – created the necessary creative gas.
Ori had taken over as headteacher of a federation of two schools in Cambridge – Trumpington Meadows, which, like Lakenham, was a new build and the more established Fawcett Primary School. Ori rang and described the new school to me. It had been built to support a large new estate, which was part quite expensive housing and part social housing. The school had a feature, unique in my experience of 35 years in different schools – a veritable motorway-sized corridor between the classrooms. Certainly, you could drive two -lane traffic along it. This was called the Learning Corridor. The school also had more than its fair share of challenging children from disturbed backgrounds. As if these things can ever be fair! Ori rang and said that the huge corridor was boring and could we do something about it. She could get some money but not like we had at Lakenham.
I would have been happy, it would have been easy, to stay at Lakenham for another 10 years. It was comfortable. But, I guess, just as my letter to the staff and children at the school stated I am a little like Nanny McPhee and I am not always comfortable being comfortable.
I joined the Federation in April 2017. One school had traditions, a history, a place in the community, the other was half empty and in a new community. Our schools were based on the old and in the new. With one vision and governing body. One entrenched in history and traditions and the other with none. I had moved from being the headteacher of one school to Executive and this was a new challenge. How do you put a heart into a school and create a shared vision between two schools facing such different challenges? How do you connect with two schools as a headteacher? It was a new challenge.
There was also an approach at the federation that we needed to ensure that the opportunities and curriculum provided was fair and equitable across the federation. What we did at one school had to be provided at the other. If I had thought funding in Norfolk was bad, the funding in Cambridge was worse! And at Trumpington Meadows, a key part of the methodology for providing additional funding for deprivation did not apply because our school postcode was so new there was no data for the area!
When I first walked down the “motorway” or “airport lounge” as I think I first described the central corridor, I imagined what Tony would think. I decided not to wait for 10 years to call Tony and the team this time. I had been in the crowd to see the final parade of the team in Norwich – only a year had passed! When Tony first visited the schools, I explained how we needed to put the heart into one school, and find a way to join the two schools together beyond the structural fact we were a federation we needed to provide a purpose to the federation, create new traditions and stories. There was a divide between the old and new Trumpington we needed to and are still working on becoming one Trumpington.
Invitation can be a big motivation for an artist. Anyway, it is for this artist. I find it fairly irresistible. I have boxed myself into some corners by overextending my reach. My skills are in working with people, particularly children, to make puppets, tell stories and make shows. Redesigning a large corridor is not really a thing in my rattlebag. I told Ori that I’d give it some thought. My idea was that I worked with a focus group of children and drew out their creative vision for the corridor. We used their ideas as a basis to work across the whole school to write a story. This story would be made and performed by the whole school as a puppet show. The puppets could be used to decorate the Learning Corridor, which might have a new name as it would be characterised in an allegorical tale created by the all the children in the school. Ori, who is enormously good at being enthusiastic about my ideas was, true to form, enthusiastic. There was one problem. Money.
Tony and I had learnt over the previous years we had worked together that we both have high expectations. This was different. Tony took what we had done before; retell a traditional creation myth and turned it on its head. He came up with the concept of the children creating their own creation myth. The problem was the funding I had available. I don’t know how he did it, and he talks about my ability to fundraise, but Tony and the team came up with “Kindling”. He did what he hates and filled in lots of forms and this resulted in us being able to take the next stage in our journey together. Tony and I throughout this process have written as if we are alone – but there are a group of incredible, likeminded and passionate members of our teams who come together and work so hard to make these “dreams come true”. They share our vision and have cried and laughed with us. Just as I am engaged in succession planning; hoping to encourage others to take up the mantle of headship, leadership, and join our noble profession, so too is Tony.
The money that Ori could access was simply not enough to do the scale of work that was needed to realise the plan. We needed subsidy from somewhere. Over time, I have applied to Arts Council England to help put projects on or for my own professional development. I have something like a one in two success rate. When I have been successful in these applications, the results have always been career shaping and sometimes life changing. I don’t know how realistic it is or, surprisingly, how it might pan out but, for a little while, I have had the notion that I might stop running around the world making shows with thousands of children or at least slow down. Then, my hope is that the structure of what we do can be passed forward. The obvious group to do this would be the core artists in our company, Creation Myth Puppets. Ori’s invitation seemed like an opportunity to work differently. Up until this point, the company had been taking stories that were part of a repertoire which I had built up over many years. It’s not an easy thing to negotiate because I have been the constant presence over those years but for change to happen, it seemed this was a chance for a more collective sense of ownership of our work.
This was a step change from what we had done before. We all became risk takers. It is easy isn’t it to get into a routine of doing something because it always works? But what if it could work better? Be even better if… There is a saying: ‘if it ain’t broke’…, but what if you improved upon it? But there is also something about continuing to learn and challenge yourself and what has been clear about working with Tony over the last few years is that we, the staff, children and communities have all learned and I am continuing to learn reflecting on these years we have travelled together.
The Trumpington Learning Corridor transformation plus company development seemed like a good prospect for a funding bid. We launched a crowdfund and we approached two other schools, one in Exeter and the other in Dorset. We called the project the Laboratory of Imagination because the children’s imaginations would be at the heart of creating what was going to be made. Like all arts project the Laboratory of Imagination morphed and became Kindling because it was a project designed to ignite new things for the children, the school communities and our company. The two names though were both accurate descriptions of what happened and, with the help of an expert grant writer, we got our grant. Over the project we worked with over 1200 children. The first school we worked in was Trumpington Meadows.
And so, this next stage of our jumping together began, where previously the children had been told a story they created their own. It began with a discussion about values.
Like the example that Ken Robinson quotes about the uses of a paperclip and how good younger children are compared to adults at being imaginative about an everyday object; the ideas poured out. The corridor could be a journey across the continents of the world and could also represent the development of each child through their learning journey as the got older in the school. And many more ideas too. Asking children to be imaginative feels to me a bit like asking them to eat chocolate. In fact, one child said that making the puppets and the show made her feel the same as when she ate some lovely chocolate. I went back to the gathering of the artist team with lots of ideas from the school council.
Tony listened to the children. I think sometimes children tell a teacher what they think they want to hear. The school council can be perfunctory. How do you make pupil voice authentic? You make their views, their ideas count, they are valued, appreciated and acted upon. Tony listened to and included the voice of our children.
We returned for the next phase of the work with the children. This time I was accompanied by a co-director from the team and together we worked with Year 6 for a morning to look at the material presented by the school council, shape it into possibilities for a allegorical tale about the corridor and, a big element of the Kindling Project – to enable children to run workshops. This group were going to run workshops for the rest of the school to extract the elements for the story. This initial session went well. We talked about the elements of the story they were seeking and different facets they needed to think about to run their mini workshops. As the saying goes, the proof of the pudding is in the eating, and the Year 6 cohort had a day ahead of them running workshops. They set up three distinct spaces in the room, allocated roles in the group and prepared their workshops.
Tony was stepping back. He was giving the children responsibility. He was allowing them to lead. The story we were now telling was a new story.
It helped us to remember that we have an imagination because, obviously, we are the older children and we don’t use our imaginations anymore. That’s how I feel…they helped us remember what it is like.’ Year 6 Child
The next day, I remember one girl coming in with a whole set of question she had prepared and, generally, what co-director Roz and I witnessed was extraordinary as the children took control of the room: divided each class into three groups, allocated them spaces, asked them questions and drew out lots and lots of ideas. The final session involved them feeding back to us what they had discovered in their workshops and then Roz and I would work on the story. To finish the day, we would tell the story they had co-authored back to the whole school. It was an amazing two days and the corridor had been renamed- The Great Between.
For me, this time was transformational. Those children became teachers and leaders. They managed groups of children, elicited the ideas of the groups they were working with, recorded them and managed the group behaviour and dynamics. They then came together and combined those ideas and worked with Tony to bring together all the ideas and yet again the sum of the parts. My expectations were raised.
The final phase was for the whole artist team of four to return, make puppets with every single child in the school plus some collectively made big puppets and then create the show. What happened across the whole of that project (and the other two schools involved in Kindling) was mind blowing. After the project an external evaluator interviewed the artists, headteachers, children, parents and staff. Here’s a headteacher’s quote from that report:..there were tears, there was spontaneous applause, there was standing ovations at the end, there was cheering; it was very emotional. Afterwards it was great to hear parents’ comments. They were tweeting comments, posting on the website how it was the best thing they had ever seen at the school. How it was inspiring… they got how special the whole process had been and how essentially life changing it was. The word magical was used several times by parents and by the Head of Year and by other teachers. I think it’s the coming together of everything … how the children had gone home and were talking about it and how whole families have had a common conversation as a result of it, the creativity, the parents being there, the amazing visual impact it’s just quite breath-taking really. The responses from parents show just how worthwhile it was.
The tale told by the children, at that first performance, resulted in a new name for the motorway: “The Place Between”. The puppets made by the children took their place and made their home in the school. As you walk down the place between you meet elephants, giraffes, polar bears and monkeys. It is our story. Our creation myth. The space is valued and appreciated by the staff and children. Visitors to our school, when they enter the, ‘formally known as “Motorway”’, sometimes gasp.
The artists of Creation Myth Puppets met and, from our Kindling experiences, created a manifesto. Whilst writing the last section Ori pointed me towards a book called The Nine Pillars of a Great School as a guide to her beliefs as a headteacher. I have taken the liberty of summarising those pillars. Looking back at our manifesto and reading the Nine Pillars, it’s clear that there is dovetailing of what we both invest our energy in trying to make happen. Albeit, Ori as a headteacher and me as the artistic director of a puppet company. Here is my summary of the Nine Pillars followed by our company manifesto.A shared vision, cultures and values based on high expectations.
- A shared vision, cultures and values based on high expectations.
- Inspirational leadership
- Exceptional learning and teaching
- Focus on engaging the pupils
- Professional Development
- Inclusive environment
- A creative curriculum, within and beyond the classroom
- High quality partnerships
- Self-evaluation and collective review
In my career, I have had the privilege of working with the best and the worst. I have always looked for challenges and people who challenge me. These 9 pillars come from the London Leadership Strategy. They are not mine, but they are a best summary of what I aim to develop in the schools I work in.
I remember when Tony sent me this manifesto and thinking that it perfectly summarised what I have seen in action and believe:
The Magic of Experience: I return to the magic carpet; magic can happen and does happen. Memories are made and doors opened.
Transferable Skills and Knowledge: The skills children and staff develop; the opportunity to work with experts. The move from making a fish, to a dolphin to a heron. You cannot always have a learning outcome that describes or can predict the impact of the ripples created.
Modelling Alternatives: It is almost impossible for those who have not worked with Tony before to imagine what that first performance might look like – sometimes Tony does not know, because he is waiting to hear what the children have to say. This is alternative. When you achieve one impossible dream.
Validation and Self Esteem: You can see where Tony has been and, when Tony returns, the children greet him like a long-lost friend. Every child is included. Every child has a part, and their puppet performs. There is a euphoria when it all comes together. Together we did this. This memory is embedded. It builds/generates capacity and confidence.
Diversity and Respect; The stories we have told have shared a core set of values and celebrated the diversity of our communities and the world beyond. We all have a right to be treated with respect. We need to not always be looking back, retelling the stories of others but look forwards and creating our own stories. Our children are concerned about the future of their planet; the use of plastic. They communicate their hopes aspirations and values in the stories they create. They have a platform, a voice.
Inclusivity and Ownership: The learning that happens when a whole school community and school communities come together is immeasurable. If we want our children to understand the importance of community and collaboration, we need to share with them what it means to take part. The importance of participation. Amongst the puppets in the show at one of the schools was a minion!
Achievement and Excellence: All too often we set expectations that limit rather than extend horizons. Think big and worry about it later. Or I guess, “reach for the moon even if you miss you will land among the stars”.
Guy Claxton in, Educating Ruby describes a secondary headteacher being stopped by a former pupil. This pupil says Thank you: “for the quality of the education at your school.” The Head remembers the pupil did badly at school and asks her, “What do you mean?” ‘She said: “You helped me develop my self-confidence and build my self-respect. You gave me faith that what I thought was worth thinking. I achieved many worthwhile things that weren’t academic. ‘You helped me become curious and made me feel my questions were worth asking. I learned that everyone makes mistakes, so I’m always up for a challenge. You helped me become more collaborative and I wasn’t afraid to ask or offer help. I’m not on edge, thinking that what I say might be stupid.’”
I don’t measure achievement and excellence by a test result. Whilst standing on the entrance to the school gate at Lakenham, at the end of the day, saying goodbye to the pupils, I had an “Educating Ruby” moment, when a young man approached me and asked me if I recognised him…
Inspiration and Legacy: That young man told me his ambitions and hopes for the future, shared with me what he had achieved and recalled what he had learnt and thanked me! We are working with children and preparing them for a future we cannot imagine and will not be there to see.
Collectivity and Cohesion: The Wailing Jennies, “One Voice” says it all. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-24qGCvo7
As well as the Trumpington Meadows children creating a show, renaming their corridor and affecting the whole of their school community; they performed the show to the whole of the other school in Federation – Fawcett Primary. Having seen the Trumpington children excel and raise the roof, Fawcett wanted their own slice of the action. Getting an arts council grant or crowdfunding require a lot of input and, especially filling out grant forms, is not particularly why I was put on the planet. I am not bad at it but it drains the spirit. Those boxes with a set amount of characters to explain your work and project are the antithesis of my arts practice in so many ways. It any case, it’s a poor rationale to apply for an arts council grant simply because you need the money. It helps to have a sound project that genuinely moves your practice and for which you have already raised some backing. We went to Fawcett without the financial muscle we had at Trumpington but that didn’t stop the children putting on a barnstorming production of The Rainbow Serpent.
Tony knew, when he said yes to Trumpington Meadows, he would have to come to Fawcett. We didn’t discuss how it would happen. It would happen. That was the deal. The show at Fawcett was incredible. With even less funding, than we had ever had before Tony and the team came back and we retold the story of the Rainbow Serpent.
So, we had worked at both schools in the federation. What next would Ori think of? This is what: Was there a way we could bring both schools together? That’s 700 plus children!
So, let’s not imagine what that will involve. I hadn’t! I am going back to another quote that strangely was given to me by my mother in law; “Reach for the moon even if you miss you will land among the stars”. This has been an inspiration.
Kindling was seriously challenging work and what happened next easily matched Kindling. The project was called First Person Plural. The premise was that working creatively and collectively amplifies the individual. As I was quoted in the evaluation for Kindling:
The idea is that workshops are a distinct form of art practice and like any arts practice, it requires imagination and rigour; it’s central to my practice. We look at every moment of those workshops to see how we can craft them so they facilitate the manifestations of the children’s imagination. We are looking at how we can maximise it for every child. One way is through the story, through the myths of emergence and also through puppetry and supporting art forms such as music. We are creating a high-quality piece of theatre and that relies on the quality of the process. All the way through there is an individual story for each individual’s involvement and then the whole school involvement and the whole school community watching that performance. It works on all these levels from the micro of each participant through to the macro of the whole school community.
What might constitute a project that built on what we had learnt from Kindling and brought Trumpington Meadows and Fawcett together in a single project?
My old friend John Moat had a delightful habit of sending me unexpected things through the post – quirky postcards, poems, his thoughts and, sometimes, books. One book he had sent me was the Sufi epic poem, Conference of The Birds – accompanied by a note that said, “See if you can make something of this.” I had the book by my bed for a while and tried to read it but found it a little impenetrable. Imagining a possible solution to Ori’s request, John’s gift was brought to mind. I couldn’t find the book though so I searched for summaries of the story and bought some simplified versions. Conference of the Birds was written a thousand years ago by a tailor and is an allegory for spiritual realisation. A flock of birds that are representatives of all the diverse species in the world hear about a mystical and magnificent bird called The Simurgh. They are led by the wise Hoopoe. The problem is that it’s a very difficult journey with lots of challenges. Some of the birds are reticent but the Hoopoe encourages them with parables and tales. On the journey birds drop away. In the end (spoiler alert – but only the basics) the few birds that make it find that the answer lies within each one of them. An idea dawns. It went something like this: A group of children from each of the two schools could rewrite the tale using the structure and characters f the original poem – creating their own allegorical journey. The group from each school would write a version as a gift to the other school, thus exchanging versions. All except for the very ending, which happens in the poem in the Valley of Unity. The Valley of Unity performance would be a synthesis of both school’s performance and resolve whatever problem the children had come up with in their story writing. In other words, three shows and the final one involving every child in both schools and setting a new world record for the Biggest Amateur Puppet Show on Earth (a record we had initially set many moons ago). I rang Ori and the meetings, funding applications and preparations began for First Person Plural. First Person Plural because of the way creative, collective workshops can connect individuals and amplify individuals. As Ori said in the Kindling evaluation: There is a sense that each child makes one thing but in coming together they create something far bigger and more important and have a sense of coming together as a whole.
This was amplified by what we achieved. Our two schools came together and created a whole story. The two parts came together. The half of the puppets and the story the children told at each school stood alone in their individual performances. But when the two stories came together there was a heart. Each individual school had made a Magic Bird. When those two Magic Birds came together, unknown to all of the school team, a heart would be formed.
There was much discussion, particularly around finding a suitable venue for 700 children with more than 700 puppets to set a world record. We raised the funding from Arts Council England and found some suitable venues in Cambridge including Cambridge Football Club. And so, the first part of the project began. Karol and I travelled to Cambridge to work with 30 children – half from each school ranging from 5 – 11 years old. We had prepared a series of tasks and questions and ways for the group to work in different mixes. Sometimes combining the schools and sometimes with their own school. The mixing was a little challenging because there is a. sort of tribal rivalry between children at different local schools but when initial hurdles overcome, the morning ran smoothly. This in itself was amazing because there were so many strong and diverse personalities in this conference that it almost mirrored the gathering at the beginning of Conference of the Birds. In collaboration with the children, we broke down the story structure of the conference of the birds into the departure, three phases of the journey, the arrival and realisation. The group then split in five groups with six children in each in roundtable discussions to flesh out what happened at the different points of the story. These groups were mixed ages and mixed schools. Something breathtaking happened. I’d call it democracy. Every table self-organised, and each one did differently according to the make-up of the group and, this is what I found remarkable, although they were all so different, at each table everybody had a voice. I have worked in countless hundreds of groups around the world and I have never seen a better demonstration of democracy than those five roundtables of children. After they finished, we collected their findings and they split back into the schools to create a whole story for their partner school.
Children are incredible. They constantly inspire me and encourage me to do my best. They soak up opportunities and when enthused, engrossed, immersed in learning they lose sense of time and space. There are those times when, as a teacher in the classroom you take the pleasure of stepping back. We don’t do it often. We are too busy thinking about the next step or working with a group who need a bit of extra teacher time to grasp a concept or consolidate a skill. But, when you do and you see that class you have been working with absorbed in the moment, challenging themselves, focussed and engaged, it is the greatest reward.
Over lunch, Karol and I wrote up the two stories and then the slight lunacy of my ambitious nature took over. We delivered the story that the Fawcett children to the whole of Trumpington Meadows school before packing up our staging and the large Hoopoe puppet we had with us to carry over to the Fawcett Campus. In my keenness to be outside and walk, I had completely underestimated the distance. We arrived to a packed hall who had been waiting at Fawcett and delivered the tale in about five minutes flat. Carrying the staging was an utter waste of time. Ambition sometimes has its pitfalls.
Two fantastic performance of Conference of the Birds were created. One in each school. They both told the child-created tales of the birds gathering to enlist the help of the scary featherless creatures …in their own words:
The birds needed to do something about the featherless scary creatures who were throwing away little bits of plastic that the birds ate thinking it was food. Plastic is not food. It was killing the birds, killing their homes and killing the food that they needed to survive. What could they do? They needed someone to show them the way, someone who could guide them to an answer.
The company did two weeks of puppet making, making more than 700 puppets in workshops with every child in both schools. Then we took a week off to recuperate. Only, I found myself with a fair amount of script writing, soundtrack making and further preparations for the last week. All the while, there was a furious scramble in the school office to find that suitable venue. One by one venues were found, only to retract their offers. During that last week we decided that we would have to use a playing field that was between the two schools and do an outdoor performance. As one who spent a long time performing outdoors, I can vouch for the fact that outdoor performance has its own rules. Especially in Britain. Especially the weather. Especially when the wind blows and especially when the rain pours.
Imagine the joy of an outdoor performance. We had done that before. But we now had to walk two entire schools to the venue and the forecast was again rain. But, there was a buzz in the air. The children were so excited. I remember the head boy at one of the schools being interviewed by the local press and hearing him say that never had he imagined that he might be breaking a world record at his age. Never had any of the children imagined they would be able to create the shows they had performed. Never had our parents seen something so impressive. The quality of what the children produce cannot be overstated.
Another factor reared its head big time on the morning of the performance – the media. The radio kicked it off and I found myself I the housing estate trying to get a good signal in a quiet corner to do a live radio interview. Then both TV channels started taking an extreme interest. This was brilliant for the children and the school community. The event was plastered all over the city of Cambridge. For the director of the show there were some downsides. The BBC wanted to set up a fake workshop situation in one of the schools with me pretending to run a puppet making workshop. And when I finally got to the site to set up, I was exhausted with acting and interviews and precious preparation time had evaporated into take after take, “Just one more… talking to this child holding the eagle puppet. Can we do that again with you standing on the other side this time.” I had to set up equipment, talk to the film maker, negotiate with the site manager and the TV crews were arriving back. I said to the four artists in the company that we needed to organise where the children were going to stand and how we were going to get them on and off stage. The company said that they would handle it and they did. The four of them organised everything from there. They were simply brilliant and as they were busy organising brilliance, dark clouds blew in and dropped their contents with a vengeance. There was frantic covering of electrics, the cloud bean to pass just in time as the children began to arrive. They were all allocated their places, some 640 of them and more than that in puppets. The TV crews wanted to film them all together in the stage area. We assembled all the children. We put on music over the PA and the children responded with earth shaking gusto. We were already well over schedule and the masses of both schools need to get back in position. There had been no time to practice. The TV crew didn’t want to let them go, “just one more take.” I’d had enough, “no more, we have to start”. This not completely put them off but the show began. The immensity is indescribable. It was blustery and the show wasn’t neat but it was beautiful. The Valley of Unity was brought to life over twenty minutes of sheer child powered magic.
The show begins with the fly passed of the Magic Bird, the legendary Simurgh of the original poem. We suddenly realised that in in all the blustery spontaneous organisation and appeasing of TV crews, nobody had been allocated to work the big puppets. This meant that the two headteachers from each school worked a magic bird each, the site manager and the bursar animated a dodo each and Ori was grabbed to manipulate a large heron. The show ends as the two magic birds are held high and connect to make a single heart. This is followed by both schools assembling in an electric celebratory dance with the birds held aloft. The TV crews try to grab me for an interview but they have to wait their turn because its children first and they all need counting to verify the record. The interviews are done. Ori tells me that the heron had special significance for her as it was her father’s favourite bird. The schools have met.
Ahh the Heron, and I casually wipe a tear away from my eye. The Heron is and always has been my favourite bird and it has for some reason appeared at key moments and times in my life. Whenever I, or my mother see one, we are reminded of my father who died 25 years ago. That got to me as, when I was handed the puppet, I had no idea what it was until I looked up and was standing with the Heron in front of the audience and the children. This Heron also appeared at a pivotal moment.
There was a final part of the project. This involved the making of a documentary film, the children creating their own newspaper called The Crow’s Nest (a child’s eye view of creativity) which would be accompanied by two actual crow’s nest installations with crows, one in each school made with the children. The Air B’n’B was booked, the evaluator ready, the film maker prepared and the company gathered to devise the details of our final three days of First Person Plural. That was in March and suddenly everything changed. Our last act before lockdown was to make this film for the children. Hopefully though not the last act of the inspiring collaboration between Ori and the company.
In ruminating on the ingredients that have made the collaboration so productive, four words popped into my head. Collaboration being the first. The other three were community, connection and coincidence. Collective creative environments depend on a quality of relationship. When that quality is there then coincidences arise such as having nobody to work the heron and suddenly grabbing Ori and the heron having special significance for Ori. A lot of those things happen and are often unspoken. Connections are made. I have thought a lot in these pieces, in my own words about the connection between Ori and me. I think there are at least these five things:
- We share a passion about children and the quality of their education (not always the same as ‘standard’).
- We believe in engagement with creativity and imagination as being key to achieving quality learning.
- Neither of see an end to how far we can improve what we do – professional development is an endless process not an end.
- We are both ridiculously ambitious – we walk way passed the extra mile.
- Symbiosis – the company’s work enhances her aims and her aims enhance the company’s work
The evaluator of First Person Plural wrote her report and the headteacher commented:
The children thoroughly enjoyed the experience of designing and making the puppets and the emotions that they feel through the process enables them to have skills that they can use in life. The pride in which every child shows with their puppet brings tears to my eyes. Even five months on, the children will tell anyone who cares to listen about the puppets on display in school and how we worked together to try and break a world record. The school council have continued wanting to do everything we can to have a positive impact on the environment.
An artist in the company once said to me, “If the product is any good then it starts the next bit of the process” The process continues.
I don’t really want to have the final word here, so I am going to quote Tony back at himself from an earlier piece as I do not think it can be said better:
“This partnership has challenged assumptions, opened up new ideas, illustrated difference and similarities, made unlikely connections, built on ideas to make better ideas, got us to look at things in new ways and taken advantage of the unexpected such as a caretaker and school bursar suddenly being called into action to work two giant Dodo puppets. Taking chances and risk has opened new worlds for both of us, the people whom we work with and, most importantly, the children – thousands of children.”