We spent just under two weeks at Stony Dean rehearsing Rebekah King's adaptation of A Midsummer Night's Dream, culminating in two performances for pupils and parents on Wednesday 18th December. Stony Dean is a specialist communication and interaction secondary school for pupils with learning difficulties. This was the YPPT's first project at a specialist school of any sort, so it was hard to know what to expect. However, the performances ended up being wonderful!
Headteacher Neil Strain summed it up for us:
"The pride I had when the pupils were delivering the language of Shakespeare, the engagement from the audience, many of which have attention deficit and short term memory issues, all of whom listened politely and enjoyed the performance. The professionalism and the professional feel the production had, made me feel like I was sat in the theatre. It blew me away!
I was bowled over with the professionalism and pride in the pupils in their jobs. Each child had a role they carried them out and the performance went without an obvious hitch. The pride in themselves in overcoming their own personal barriers were evident. Seeing pupils and knowing the pupils' journeys and seeing them succeed was also incredible. It’s hard to put a numerical value on the kind of progress that I observed. Schools love a % increase, but actually the pupils gained skills and confidence that a score or grade does not and could not count. For that I am and will be eternally thankful.
We are very grateful to Didymus, The Hedley Foundation and Heart of Bucks for their support of this project - the pupils could not have done this without you!
Headteacher Neil Strain summed it up for us:
"The pride I had when the pupils were delivering the language of Shakespeare, the engagement from the audience, many of which have attention deficit and short term memory issues, all of whom listened politely and enjoyed the performance. The professionalism and the professional feel the production had, made me feel like I was sat in the theatre. It blew me away!
I was bowled over with the professionalism and pride in the pupils in their jobs. Each child had a role they carried them out and the performance went without an obvious hitch. The pride in themselves in overcoming their own personal barriers were evident. Seeing pupils and knowing the pupils' journeys and seeing them succeed was also incredible. It’s hard to put a numerical value on the kind of progress that I observed. Schools love a % increase, but actually the pupils gained skills and confidence that a score or grade does not and could not count. For that I am and will be eternally thankful.
We are very grateful to Didymus, The Hedley Foundation and Heart of Bucks for their support of this project - the pupils could not have done this without you!
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