I launched this blog as a platform for some of the excellent, uplifting, often unsung, good practice in social and public policy.
In contrast, this week I’ve been finding out about some of the worst care possible.
The opposite of “care”, in fact.
A host of very adept, passionate bloggers and campaigners have been demanding not only answers, but action after the death last year of Connor Sparrowhawk. Connor, 18, died while “being cared for” at a Southern Health Trust in-patient unit in Oxfordshire for people with learning disabilities.
As Connor’s mother Sara has said, “He should never have died and the appalling inadequacy of the care he received should not be possible in the NHS.” Sara’s powerful blog includes links to bloggers and commentators whose words are well worth reading.
I had to share Sara’s beautiful and powerful slideshow here; please watch it if you’ve not seen it before. And if you have already seen it, watch it again to remind yourself of the very real people and families behind the astonishing inequalities in care experienced by people with learning disabilities.
Much has been written about Connor, and more will be – although clearly we need more action than words alone – but taken together, Sara’s slideshow and these stark words from the independent report published last week tell you much of what you need to know: “the death of [Connor] was preventable”.
* Follow #JusticeforLB on Twitter @JusticeforLB
* Read more on Sara’s blog and sign up for email updates here
Gold Run, an opera at Glyndebourne (pic: David Illman)
“People say to me how great it is that I ‘help’ people with learning disabilities to make their own films but I don’t do this out of charity. Far from it. I do what I do because I am excited by the amazing talents of the people I work with. Filmmakers with learning disabilities have an ability to offer a view of the world that I don’t. I couldn’t even dream of the scripts that our members write.” So says Will Sadler from Beacon Hill Arts in Newcastle, reflecting just one view about “learning disability arts”.
It’s the same sentiment expressed by Richard Phoenix, who runs music organisation Constant Flux, and who I’ve quoted elsewhere on this site : “Often when I talk to people about working with people with learning disabilities in music I encounter the “Aww…. That’s so nice” attitude, which isn’t intrinsically wrong in any way but it seems to me to represent a feeling that people with learning disabilities are only capable of emotionally neutered art, of things that are ‘nice’ and ‘happy’ which from my experience is completely off the mark.”
So what does that phrase “learning disability arts” mean to the public? What constitutes “good art” is a notoriously subjective and personal view, but what is the quality of work being produced by people with learning disabilities? How is such art produced, judged, presented or received differently to “mainstream” art? How far do non-learning disabled artists who collaborate with people who have a learning disability lead the project – and what standard of art is produced?
The Brighton-based project, Creative Minds, is hoping to lead a much-needed national debate about these kinds of issues. Funded by the Arts Council, Brighton and Hove city council and the John Ellerman and Paul Hamlyn foundations, Creative Minds is run by a committee of learning disabled artists who want to “challenge perceptions of their work being labeled as ‘good therapy’ and have a national discussion about its quality and how that can be defined”.
Horse, watercolour by Carol Chilcott
Leading arts charity Carousel is facilitating the project with some good food for thought already given a platform via the Creative Minds website and the first in a series of conferences will be held in Brighton a week today, on Monday 10 March.
The aim is for learning disabled artists to showcase their work and lead discussions about it. The conferences are targeted at their peers, arts organisations, critics, funders, venue programmers and anyone interested in learning disability led arts
Performances, art and discussion includes Action Space London, Chris Pavia and Stop Gap Dance Company, Corali Dance Company, Face Front Theatre Company, Oska Bright Film Festival and Rocket Artists.
Laundry Boy, Face Front Theatre
The Creative Minds steering committee explains that “as individual artists and performers we have had our work not taken seriously when we have shown it in theatres, galleries and on stage”. The group’s aim is “to change peoples ideas and perceptions and the way they see us”.
Hopefully the project and conferences will lead to a high profile debate that reaches beyond the learning disability arts sector.
As performer Bethan Kendrick writes on the Creative Minds site, “Having a learning disability informs your art and helps you produce work of a high quality. I have found that my confidence has grown because I perform my work to audiences. Thinking about quality will help you develop your skills, especially as you work with your company and your director. I take my performance work very seriously. This gives me great confidence in my art.”
• The Creative Minds conference is on Monday 10 March, 10am to 5pm at the Brighton Dome, Church St, Brighton (the venue is wheel chair accessible)
• Constant Flux presents the Fish Police on tour from next month, see website
These candid images of caring are among the photographs in a new exhibition that focuses on the role of carers and disability.
Capturing the bond between disabled children and young adults and their parents, professionals, siblings and friends, tonight’s show from the charity Netbuddy raises awareness of the challenges faced by young disabled people ahead of the UN’s Children’s Day on Wednesday. The photographs are a refreshing take on the images of disability which usually appear in the public domain; although representing the difficulties experienced by the children and young people and their families and carers, they also present disability and caring in a family and social context.
The Faces of Caring exhibition by Netbuddy, an online community for parents, carers and professionals looking after people with special needs, includes photographs of people with complex medical needs and a range of learning disabilities.
* Faces of Caring starts at 6pm today The Hub, Tanner Street, London SE1. For more information, contact Netbuddy
David BraunsbergMy experience proves the benefits of volunteering for people with autism. I was born in 1959 and diagnosed with autism in 1963, at age four. I was one of Sybil Elgar’s first pupils at her progressive school. She was a pioneer in autism and helped develop my language and communication skills.
I then attended a local primary school in Edinburgh, where my mother and I moved, and a mainstream secondary school in London when we moved back to England in 1972. Art was my strongest subject (I passed several O Levels) and I studied furnishing design and textiles at the London College of Furniture. I got a diploma in art and design. I took more courses after that at a local art college and learned things like etching and print making. My most recent works are computer generated greetings cards (see the website).
Following a traumatic event in 2008, I developed severe depression and anxiety . After some time attending a psychiatric unit, social services support and help from my GP, a social worker suggested volunteering and I was put in touch with Volunteer Centre Camden.
It was through the volunteer centre that I started working at the Holy Cross Centre Trust in July 2011. It is a secular organisation in King’s Cross, London, which supports mental health recovery as well as homeless people, refugees and asylum seekers.
I hadn’t volunteered before although I’d had some experience of work. The place where I worked previously was a company providing unpaid employment for people with mental health issues and was run as a social service. The aim was to manufacture and distribute large volumes of greeting cards to the mass market but I wasn’t happy there. The tasks I was involved in were printing and packing greeting cards and using Photoshop on a computer for designing cards for later use and batch production.
I did not get satisfaction there as I was mostly restricted to printing other people’s designs and this did not allow me to express my own ideas. Their bias was to produce Christmas cards and my inspiration for designs comes from many sources which are irrelevant for Christmas. The repetitive tasks were soul-destroying.
But at the Holy Cross where I am now, my role is to help and encourage people to draw and paint, also to set up and tidy the art materials. I work noon to 3pm. Everyone is kind and friendly and there is a positive buzz to the place. Not only is helping out so satisfying and rewarding, it helps me to gain significantly in confidence and the thrill of feeling respected and valued as part of a team is fantastically liberating. I have made many friends and can see myself thriving there well in the future.
Suitable volunteering should be open to more autistic people as the skills required such as attention to detail, reliability or some special talents are well suited to the autistic trait and may prove to be great assets for the workplace. On their part autistic people can benefit from mixing and socialising with people of different nationalities and backgrounds and feeling respected and valued. To me the regular routines, the structure to the week and the sense of purpose in society are most satisfying.
Autistic people may encounter some difficulties. For example, travelling on public transport, especially long distances, or unintentional and misinterpreted challenging behaviour may cause problems. But with foresight, awareness about autism, guidance and the right support I see no reason why autistic people should not be accepted and be very successful doing voluntary work. I am quite sure that, giving the right conditions, volunteering can be “autism friendly”.
The fact I am high functioning autistic has presented no problems in my volunteering. One of the benefits of working there is that it has a knock-on effect on my closeness, love and affection towards members of the family. I now feel so optimistic about the future. Socialising now comes with ease. I am thrilled with life!
Punk band PKNShouty, sweary, noisy chaos, big stage personas, a self-proclaimed kick-ass attitude, loud drums, screeching guitars and songs about fighting and sex.
That this is a description of two punk bands currently touring the UK will hardly come as a shock. But the bands confound expectations in other ways; the gigs by Pertti Kurikan Nimipaivat (PKN), from Finland and Zombie Crash, a Brighton heavy metal band, represent the first time that two learning disabled bands will tour the country.
I’ve blogged before about PKN, the band is as likely to write lyrics arguing for respect and equality as it is to sing about avoiding trips to the pedicurist or to complain about residential care homes.
The four date tour, which began on Tuesday, is funded by the Arts Council England and organized by, Constant Flux, an arts organisation that provides opportunities to learning disabled musicians.
Richard Phoenix, who runs Constant Flux, explains: “Often when I talk to people about working with people with learning disabilities in music I encounter the “Aww…. That’s so nice” attitude, which isn’t intrinsically wrong in any way but it seems to me to represent a feeling that people with learning disabilities are only capable of emotionally neutered art, of things that are ‘nice’ and ‘happy’ which from my experience is completely off the mark.
“This tour is a perfect example to present people with something that totally challenges those perceptions, nothing about the bands music or performance is going to be ‘nice’ in any way shape or form. There will be shouting and swearing, with songs about not wanting to live in residential care, demands for respect and equality, songs about fighting, songs about sex.”
Richard says that the musicians’ uncompromising attitudes musical ability will shatter the stereotypical view of what people with learning disabilities can achieve, “this in turn will hopefully help positively affect attitudes toward those with learning disabilities”.
The fact the bands are touring is a vital part of the project, adds Richard. “Touring is something which is such a huge part of what it is to be a musician and being in a band, but for so long it has been extremely difficult to achieve within the learning disabled music scene because it can be such a financial and logistical nightmare.”
Kalle, who supports PKN, sums up the band’s gung-ho attitude: “They’re feeling very excited about this. They are used to playing gigs in tight schedules but never done this tight… but they don’t think about it. They love going abroad, even though some of them don’t really know, or care, where they are globally.”
Ryan, lead guitarist and vocalist with Zombie Crash, offers this response to the tour: “Metal unleashed from the learning disabled community! It means the ultimate activity for any band to put themselves through, to go on tour, to be as active as you possibly can. The fact that we’re doing this in the month of October and Halloween is the perfect timing for us to unleash hell!”
The fact the tour has promoted as a regular event – rather than as simply a “good cause” – should help “create situations where people with learning disabilities at a gig is normalised, where it’s not unusual or exceptional”, says Richard.
On a practical level, the touring musicians have to be supported. “Making this tour viable for learning disabled artists involved ensuring that, as vulnerable adults, the musicians were supported properly,” explains Richard, “so there are 22 of us on the tour, 10 band members and various members of support, some people require one-on-one support, there are members of creative support and musical facilitation, drivers and myself managing the tour.”
Safe, reliable accommodation has been booked in advance each night, unlike in the DIY touring network where you play a gig and don’t necessarily know where you’re staying that night. “The Arts Council was so important in making this whole thing happen…we’ve been able to book everything in advance and ensure that as much risk as possible is removed, also it has taken away the dimension of the tour being a success in a financial sense and has created a situation where it can be judged on it’s artistic merits.”
One interesting byproduct of the tour planning is that it has created debate about how best to promote the gigs. Richard adds: “The main question that is asked is that if the music can stand on its own then why does the element of disability have to come into the equation? There definitely is weight behind this argument, however in discussion with several artists with learning disabilities and parents and carers of artists, the over-riding feeling is that it is more important for these artists to be strong, empowered representatives of a largely under-represented and marginalised section of society.”
• The remaining tour dates are today, October 3, at Sheffield at Heeley Sport and Social Club (with Skiplickers and Amarous Dialogues) and Friday, October 4, in Brighton at The Green Door Store (with Good Throb and The Soft Walls). Both venues are accessible with accessible toilets and prices are £3 (carers free/donation only).
Raffle ticket seller Raana Salman at the Lantern Community open dayI’ve never thought of my sister, above, as a saleswoman – she can be engaging, encouraging, persuasive and talkative, but she’s never actually sold me anything other than an idea (usually about what film to watch; invariably a Bond movie).
So my family and I were impressed – and proud – to see Raana in marketing mode (above, resplendent with pot for raffle ticket cash) for the first time on Saturday (scroll down for a gallery of snapshots).
We spent the day with Raana at a fundraising fete and open day at the Lantern Community in Ringwood, Hampshire, where she lives and works.
Raana, along with some of her peers, formed a veritable raffle mafia – but not only was parting with cash in a good cause, it was impossible to say no when the ticket sellers assured you “this one’s a winner!” (this was clearly a sales spiel – neither I nor anyone in my family won a single thing…).
The open day in the Lantern’s grounds – with flowers, plants and fruit and veg in early autumnal bloom, stalls, food and live music – marked the opening of a new house, Silver Birches, for adults with learning disabilities. The day was also a celebration of the charity merger between the Lantern and Seahorses. Seahorses is four-star holiday accommodation on the Isle of Wight run by, with and for people with disabilities (as well as for those without) – a B&B with a bonus, as I explained in a recent Guardian piece.
From the fruit, vegetables and plants on sale and display to the bakery produce and the range of arts and crafts including pottery and woodwork, the day showcased the talents of a creative and inspiring group of people. And one of them, running from stall to stall with a book of pink tickets and a broad smile, refusing to stop to chat to me (“I’m busy! I’m working!”), was my saleswoman of a sister.
Talking to my eight-year-old daughter about the fact I was going to blog about our day with Raana, she immediately suggested a title for the story. It’s so neat and accurate, I think it rounds off the post and sums up the event perfectly: The Lantern Stars.
A postcard designed for a new disability awareness campaign launched today. “Each fruit on my tree of life displays a message for me to follow. This helps me to mature and develop”, says its creator Cameron, 18.
How many people aspire to be ordinary? Success is usually defined success as standing out from the crowd, being the focus of attention or doing something extraordinary.
But Shairaz’s wish is different.
Shairaz wants to be regarded as ordinary because, as he says, he and his peers are usually regarded as scroungers or superheroes.
Shiraz, who has a learning disability, says of the stereotypical perception of disabled people: “We shouldn’t only be portrayed when we do something amazing or something bad. We should also be portrayed when we are doing ordinary things. Most of us are not scroungers. It’s the government that has decided to offer us support, it’s not us begging. Many people can’t work and that’s not their fault, we shouldn’t be called scroungers.”
Shiraz is taking part in a new campaign launched today by the social care charity United Response. Along with a survey and a new report on attitudes to disability, there is an art project and exhibition from next week, Postcards From The Edges which focuses on the everyday lives and achievements of disabled people (see the examples on this page, view more on the charity’s dedicated project site and via this Guardian gallery).
The survey, report and artworks coincide with National Paralympic Day on Saturday, marking a year since the Paralympics – but the event’s impact may be fading, according to United Response’s survey. The aim of the survey, report and art project is to transform how the public sees disabled people.
For example, two thirds of the 1000 people surveyed say they see more disabled people in the real world than in the media, while four out of five say that the public does not know enough about disability.
While the research shows the Paralympics was a memorable event – Ellie Simmonds’ four gold medals is named as the best memory by 31% of respondents – less than one in five of respondents could name a disabled person who has become well-known in the year since the Paralympics. Meanwhile, 40% found it difficult to name a well known physically disabled person and only one in five could name a person with a learning disability.
The postcards, many of which will be showcased in an exhibition at Bankside Gallery in London, complements this research. The charity asked people – well-known or “ordinary”, with or without disabilities – to write or draw cards in any creative style. The only proviso was that the card design in some way responded to the question: “What do you want to tell the world?”.
United Response has collated the cards over the last eight months and the results – more than 550 pieces of art – are a snapshot of thoughts, hopes, fears, ambitions and everyday experiences of a wide range of people. There are submissions from older people with mental health needs, parents of children with autism, people with physical disabilities, children and social workers. Among the postcard designers are Paralympians Hannah Cockroft and Dame Sarah Storey, Olympian Sally Gunnell, Suede singer Brett Anderson and actor Emma Thompson.
An awareness-raising postcard by Scott, 19, from Staffordshire: ““My postcard is to try and educate people about autism and how others can be ignorant towards the condition”.
The report from the charity’s campaigns panel (which Shairaz is a member of) underlines the messages from the survey and the art project. The publication, Superhumans or Scroungers, reveals the gap between the portrayal of the superhuman Paralympians and media coverage of disabled people.
“We shouldn’t be portrayed in just one light, as superheroes or scroungers,” says Shairaz about the report. “People should know more about our lives overall… I would just like to see us portrayed more as ordinary people. Yes we’re special in some ways, but so is everyone. It would be good to see television not just concentrating on our disability but on who we are and what matters to us, like the place we live. That would give everyone a chance to learn from different experiences and that might help everyone to stop generalising.”
The aim of the report and panel, Shairaz adds, is “to make people more aware of what disability is about…A lot of people have the wrong impression of people with disabilities. They think disabled people are all the same and should be classed under one branch. They don’t understand hidden disabilities, like my mental disability. A lot of people think that people with mental disabilities are crazy or stupid, but that’s not true.
“People make assumptions because they don’t understand. So I think the panel is about helping people understand and also telling them that we have rights and views and opinions. Our opinions count as much as able people’s opinions.”
The report stresses that media coverage of disability tends to focus on people with physical disabilities, meaning that people with learning disabilities, autism, mental health needs and other hidden disabilities are “almost invisible”.
Shairaz and his fellow campaigns panel members also worry about the growth in news stories about welfare with, as the report states, a simplistic representation of disability creating “a polarisation of who is ‘deserving’ or ‘undeserving’ of support”. The report explains, “it means there is very little attention given to ordinary disabled people or the positive contributions that they make”.
The postcards project ties into this, says Shairaz, because it offers people a wider vision of disability and of the achievements of disabled people in a positive, creative way. He adds: “It’s also good to tell people your experience, but nice to do it in a fun way… Life isn’t always serious and spilling your heart out. When people ask about my life I don’t say “Oh, I just mope about and feel sorry for myself”, I say I have fun too.”
Su Sayer, United Response’s chief executive co-founded the organisation 40 years ago when it was the norm for people with learning disabilities to be hidden away in large institutions. She adds: “While the last four decades have seen huge changes for many people with learning disabilities, there is still widespread prejudice and lack of understanding from the broader public. Many people still don’t understand much about disability or the lives of disabled people, let alone their achievements.”
A postcard by Yvonne J Foster, an artist living with depression: “I have depression and sometimes I am so overwhelmed with strong emotions that my body collapses.”Postcard by artist Yvonne J Foster: “Sometimes I cannot cope with reality. It’s not safe for me to remember things that have happened so I create a safe place for myself in my head.”Postcard by artist Yvonne J Foster: “Psychiatric hospital shouldn’t have such a stigma. I was admitted twice last year and it was the safest place I could have been at the time”.
Sayer adds that the two extremes of how disabled people are portrayed – lionised as superhuman or criticised as scroungers – is “far, far from the reality of the overwhelming majority of disabled people today…’ordinary’ disabled people are still very absent from public life”.
Shairaz agrees. “It’s important to know that it’s not just the people who can do great things at sport who are important,” he says. “Everyone is a hero in themselves. My girlfriend says I can be a hero sometimes, because of the support I give her.”
* The Postcards from the Edges exhibition opens at Bankside Gallery in London on Tuesday 10 September and runs until Sunday 15 September. It will be followed by a showcase at the Sage in Gateshead (1- 4 October), the Grant Bradley Gallery in Bristol (private view on the evening of 23 September) and the Camp and Furnace Gallery in Liverpool (4-10 November).
* Find out more about the project by visiting the Postcards website.
Kevin Preen and Michael Edwards embark on their campaign to raise awareness about travel and learning disability
Public transport – by definition involves “buses, trains, and other forms of transport that are available to the public, charge set fares, and run on fixed routes”. While the network is meant to be for the use of the general public, a significant section of that population – people with a learning disability – faces challenges when using the system.
While people with a physical disability are often literally unable to get onto vehicles, someone with a learning disability might be physically capable of stepping onto a train, but might find the system as a whole impossible to negotiate.
My sister, for example, likes using buses, trains or Tubes but it would be impossible for her to safely work her way round any of those modes of transport alone; her anxiety would leave her rooted to the spot and she’d be unable to cope with making sense of the numerous changes and confusing timetables..multiple folded leaflets, tiny print, lots of abbreviations..forget it, it’s difficult enough for the rest of us, let alone someone with Fragile X syndrome. So her journeys are accompanied or she’s driven from A to B by us but for other people with learning disabilities, there are not many other options for getting about.
Take Kevin Preen, without public transport, he says he would be “stuck in doors all day”. Kevin, 52, has a learning disability and Perthes’ disease, which led to a hip replacement when he was seven-years-old.
Kevin is supported by and is a peer-advocate for Oxford-based learning disability charity My Life My Choice (he has also represented Oxfordshire’s learning disabled community at the National Forum). He is now spearheading a travel and transport campaign for My Life My Choice during Learning Disability Week, which starts today.
The 52-year-old, who is currently awaiting an Atos assessment for work capacity, adds”: “Without public transport…I could make a few short journeys a week by taxi but I couldn’t afford to do much.”
His awareness-raising mission, known as the End to End trip, involves Kevin and a fellow peer advocate, Michael Edwards, travelling by train from John O’Groats to Lands End to highlight the importance of public transport to learning disabled people amid the cuts.The social exclusion often faced by people with learning disabilities is being exacerbated by the cuts as day services close and public transport becomes even more important in boosting people’s independence.
Kevin adds: “It will be a new experience. I’m getting excited about meeting people on the train and raising awareness of how important public transport is to people with learning disabilities”
Kevin and his fellow “transport champion” Michael will stay in B&B’s and hotels along the route with travel passes issued by train firm First Great Western. Accompanied by the charity’s champions coordinator Dan Harris – who will be capturing their journey online – the aim is to record the good and bad aspects of the trip. Dan adds that even if the experience involves getting on the wrong train, “as long as it isn’t going to seriously impact our journey, it would be good to capture that and explore the challenges that led to the mistake”.
Michael, 59, who has very limited vision, epilepsy and a learning disability. He lives with his brother who acts as his carer. Michael helped found the self-help charity and is a trustee of My Life My Choice. He says: “Trains bring me a lot of pleasure. I have been planning my own routes and taking trips as far away as Devon for 15 years. I’ve been watching trains on platforms since 1967…I like trains, I’ve got myself a hobby.”
According to the charity, among the main travel issues faced by the people it supports is the difficulty in being unable to understand timetables and dealing with confusing platform changes. Kevin, for example, once ended up getting on a train heading for Penzance instead of his home area of Oxford because of making a wrong platform change. Another major problem is that of bullying on public transport.
Bus and train drivers are also not always aware of the needs of disabled passengers. Just last month, for example, Jackie, who is also supported by My Life My Choice was travelling independently on a bus. On boarding, the driver asked her to reverse her wheel chair into the disabled space, but didn’t give her time to reverse before moving off. The jolt as he pulled away meant Jackie’s jacket got caught and tore. She pressed the bell well in advance of her stop but the bus driver didn’t stop until she was past where she wanted to get off (he told her she hadn’t pressed the bell well enough in advance).
The End to End trip schedule takes in Glasgow, Manchester, Swansea and Paddington before arriving in Land’s End on Sunday August 25th. In each place, the travel champions will meet local learning disability organisations.
My Life My Choice hopes to publish an easy read document about learning disability and public transport as a result of the End to End campaign and you can follow the trip on Twitter.
* More information about the trip can be found on the charity’s website and you can view a gallery of photographs about the trip here here.
A resident of Hinnerup Kollegiet, a Danish community of older people with autism (pic: Hinnerup Kollegiet)
Timothy Baron was among the first children in the UK to be diagnosed with autism just over 50 years ago. Timothy was in need of specialist education but autistic children then had no right to schooling, so his father, Michael, opened his own school, the movement became the Society for Autistic Children – now the National Autistic Society (NAS).
That was the 1960s; today, Timothy, who lives in residential care, is nearing 60. The first generation of children to be diagnosed with autism is now moving into older age. Ageing with autism brings not only the particular challenges of the condition – communication, social interaction or sensory issues – but the social, physical and mental health issues often experienced in old age.
Policymakers are aware of the impact on society of the ageing population, but the same focus has not been given to people with learning disabilities and autism.
Read the rest of my piece about the need for more work on autism and growing older in the Guardian’s social care pages.
It’s not the first pairing of the Beatles and Shakespeare, and nor is it unique for making the work of the bard more accessible, both in the theatre and in print. But it is among the most unusual and inspiring.
Students at Gosden House special educational needs school near Guildford will today perform an interactive version of Twelfth Night, influenced by and including music from the album Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. An inclusive performance for a young audience with complex learning difficulties, it aims to transform the audience into members of the Lonely Hearts Club Band, with a Shakespearean twist.
Globe Education runs theatre workshops at Godsen House school
The show marks 10 years of an arts education partnership between the school and the educational arm of Shakespeare’s Globe – the first production a decade ago was Romeo and Juliet.
For the last few weeks, Globe Education education staff have visited the school to work with students and teachers and prepare for today’s show (the 10 year anniversary coincides with the retirement of Godsen headteacher and Beatles fan Jon David).
The event is billed as an “eclectic mix of Shakespeare and Sgt Pepper” and students have been involved in creating five original songs while others will be playing music as part of a live band at the start and end of the play. The children themselves become Shakespeare’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.
For Globe Education, the partnership has enabled practitioners to develop similar practices within the Southwark community where the theatre is based. The Globe is also involved in putting on relaxed performances which I’m a big fan of, and is training practitioners to work people on the autism spectrum.
For today, however, the focus is on Godsen’s talented students. To use the words of Lennon and McCartney in Sgt Pepper, “they’re guaranteed to raise a smile”.
