Creative Learning - Schools and Advocacy
Here at The Rep, we want to lead the way nationally with our training programmes and are committed to placing training at the heart of all our activities and to growing our range of opportunities. As the government fails to recognise that arts subjects are vital towards a balanced curriculum, there is a decline in the number of people who are pursuing arts careers and taking up arts education at FE and HE level.
This last term our Head of Education has been travelling across the midlands and hosting events at The Rep to encourage young people to not only engage with the arts but be inquisitive about careers too.
Firstly Bhavik Parmar attended the Drama, Theatre and Education Alliance Seminar at the Labour Party Conference in Liverpool, where himself and three other panellists spoke about the emphasis of Arts Education in school settings, its wider benefit on young people’s learning, confidence and creativity and also the need for arts organisations to provide valuable work experience opportunities and industry days. Off the back of this Bhavik was invited to lead a Career Ambitions workshop with young people on the Global Leadership programme at Coventry University. Bhavik will also be speaking at the MA Applied Theatre and Education Symposium at Derby University.
As well as taking part in external visits, in this last term we have hosted two teacher training events for primary school teachers where they have looked at ways of delivering immersive drama workshops focusing on teacher-in-role practises. For our secondary school cohorts, we have hosted Vamos Theatre Company who are leading a teacher’s session on devising and teaching using masks. We have also hosted an Industry Day at The Rep in November in which groups of students from various colleges and universities attended a Back Stage Tour and QnA with staff from the Birmingham Rep. More than ever there is a need for teachers to embed drama into their curriculums and over the course of the year we will be looking at ways in which The Rep can develop further opportunities, apprenticeships and placement opportunities in the future.
Lastly in our hope to continue to inspire future generations of theatre-makers we worked with Rinkoo Barpaga, both an ex-student of Braidwood School for the Deaf and an alumni of our Rep Foundry artist development programme. What better way to celebrate the launch of our latest Foundry project than to show one of our previous Foundry members returning to their old school and our current partner, Braidwood School. Rinkoo led an assembly with young people about his difficult journey into the arts and his motivation to continue regardless of any barriers that came his way. This inspirational assembly was followed up by a series of workshops he delivered to the BTEC Performing Arts Students. Rinkoo is also returning to Braidwood in March to continue delivering workshops in the schools as well as supporting during Careers Week.
All our creative learning and talent development programmes are made possible thanks to the generosity of our funders and donors. The Rep’s Foundry 2023 programme is supported by the Esmee Fairbairn Foundation and Ramps on the Moon. If you would like to find out more about how you can support training at The Rep, then visit our Support Us pages here.
For more information on workshops check out our schools partner packages here and to learn about training opportunities across the organisation contact our Pathways Manager Molly Taylor.