Building key life skills through the puppet project
During their YPPT project, each child develops a huge range of creative skills. They also grow in confidence, resilience, teamworking and communication, and engage better with learning in general. They leave our projects willing to try new things, and with the skills and attributes they will need to thrive at secondary school and beyond.
Confidence
Children leave our projects more confident in their own abilities and more open to trying new challenges in future.
Resilience
Children learn to work through a long process, to celebrate progress along the way, and to keep going when things get tough.
Teamwork
Children learn to work together, even with classmates they wouldn’t usually be friends with, and to look for each others’ strengths.
Making a lasting difference
The feedback from teachers, parents and children who’ve taken part in our projects is incredible.
You can watch more testimonials on our YouTube channel, or scroll down to learn more about the University of Hertfordshire’s research into our impact.
Why puppetry?
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The whole process is long. At every stage, the children build on what has come before, creating a huge sense of anticipation which lasts across many months. As a result, attendance during project sessions is higher than normal and behaviour improves.
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From the outset the children are making puppets and sets which will get used, not just art to be displayed. This also drives the level of engagement.
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The projects are deliberately challenging, but designed to be achievable. Conquering the challenge becomes a huge source of satisfaction and self-confidence to the children as they exceed even their own expectations of what they can do.
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Puppetry is an absolute leveller—everyone is backstage so there are no starring roles and no prima donnas but also no unimportant roles. Everything needs to be done correctly, everyone’s contribution matters equally. Special educational needs and English as an additional language form absolutely no barriers to full participation.
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The children make puppets which are more complicated than anyone would have expected of them, and the stage on which they perform is of professional calibre, designed by Brilliant Stages who build touring stages for international pop and rock stars. The children’s commitment and attitude to the production is driven up by the professional quality of the environment in which they are operating.
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None of the children have done anything like it before. No-one has a head start, and everyone learns together.
Measuring our impact
In 2018–19, researchers from the University of Hertfordshire tracked 180 children through their YPPT projects. Their study showed that each child develops social, practical and creative skills, from design and performance skills to working independently, taking responsibility, working as part of a team and communicating effectively. The researchers also showed that the projects’ impact is lasting, and affects all areas of the children’s lives. Most importantly, the greatest impact is on children considered “disadvantaged”.
