An educational experience

On a wet November morning, in a school hall still smelling faintly of yesterday’s cabbage, 200 pairs of teenage eyes stare suspiciously at a cast of actors. For some, this is their first experience of live theatre. For the actors, Theatre in Education (TIE) is the most honest creative exchange they will ever engage in and also one of the most rewarding. Earlier this year the curtain came down on one of the largest and most successful TIE companies in the UK, CragRats. At its height CragRats employed over 350 actors and performed to more than one million people a year. As it closed its doors for the last time, questions were asked about the current economic climate and, with a casualty of that scale, what the future holds for TIE in a recession.

TIE saw a remarkable renaissance during the 1990s and early 2000s. It continues to be one of the most useful and successful routes for young actors into the professional performing arts. Public and private sector organisations have increasingly recognised the power and effectiveness of engaging young people through emotional learning. CragRats worked with more than 250,000 young people in 2008 alone. Project funding from corporate social responsibility (CSR) budgets, central government and local authorities continues to indicate that the demand for good quality, effective TIE has never been greater. But it would be foolhardy to assume the recession won’t have ramifications for arts organisations and actors specialising in this area. Companies such as BT have already shifted their CSR focus away from using professional TIE in the light of budget cuts. The Learning and Skills Council, a long-time supporter of learning through live theatre, is coming to an end in 2010. It would also be fair to expect that public sector funding will continue to be squeezed over the next 18 months. So is the future bleak? Is TIE facing its biggest crisis for 20 years?

Cause for optimism

Personally, I think the answer is “no” on both counts. Change is definitely coming – indeed, is already happening – but that change brings an increased opportunity for creativity and ingenuity and an increased demand for accountability. TIE functions across an incredibly broad spectrum of learning, from supporting Drama and English text-based studies to exploring the application of science, technology, engineering and maths. In personal, social and health education (PSHE), theatre has a specific ability to explore emotional learning and challenge perceived attitudes and behaviours. There is still great potential for TIE to remain a hugely useful cross-curricular learning tool.

Key for the future will be the continued ability of TIE companies to balance the creative dynamic with the ability to manage and layer the learning experience. There is a real hunger for effective TIE, especially in the PSHE curriculum. But there is a need for that learning to be appropriately structured, delivered with skill and in a way that embeds a lasting legacy with each school or college. A generalised one-hit-wonder approach was not good enough ten years ago, and it certainly won’t be good enough now. Schools and colleges deserve a broader contribution, building on the success of a live performance but also offering interactive workshops, curriculum-appropriate teaching materials, and online resources. TIE should not be used simply as an information delivery system or a marketing technique. In a sector populated by numerous small, medium and large TIE organisations there will, inevitably, be good and bad experiences for clients, actors, teachers and students alike. Presentations that are used almost as an advertising tool are missing a critical opportunity to engage with students on a deeper level. Projects that invite and demand the interaction and involvement of the students create much deeper learning and leave a much more valuable legacy.

Valuing learning

Whether we like it or not, value (especially for money) is going to be of increasing importance. Clients and funding organisations should be encouraged to see the importance of investing in this form of education, but the emphasis has to be on delivering an evidenced return for that investment, not on necessarily offering a low-cost, box-ticking solution. Accurate feedback on learners’ understanding, from both students and teachers, must go beyond a purely subjective response. That process begins by working with the client to identify their target audience, learning objectives and how they anticipate measuring changes in understanding and behaviour over time. By embedding a learning project over a number of years, funding organisations will see the momentum that can be created and how easy it will become for school to incorporate a project into their already busy timetables. This does not necessarily need to be an open-ended drain on a client’s resources. One project that CragRats ran on youth arson prevention saved South Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service over £1m in a single year. This clearly demonstrates that there are financial as well as educational and artistic rewards for investing in well-designed and well-executed projects.

Developing the practitioners

A responsibility also lies in the training and support of actors to be able to deliver this learning. Workshops should not be seen as a bolt-on activity filling time at the end of a performance. Having auditioned hundreds of younger actors, many for their first professional job, I have seen just how much support and further training some need to be able to structure and deliver the education element of TIE effectively. Companies that can offer that level of continued professional development play a critical role in enabling young actors to improve their skills, potential for employment and ultimately their ability to make an ongoing career in the performing arts.

All practitioners of TIE are only as good as the last experience a school or college had, irrespective of who delivered it. Offering sustainable value involves offering effective learning that invites students to care, empowers them to take responsibility and enables them to change behaviours. The future of TIE lies in our ability to continue to invest in and support measured, effective, creative learning that challenges and inspires. So, as those 200 14 year-olds sit and shuffle, waiting for you to begin, invite and value their contribution. Don’t shy away from challenging their perceptions or from their ability to make and express complex value judgements. Recognise that when you see their eyes light up and their arms unfold, that the greatest reward in TIE is knowing that you’ve played a small part in making a difference. Knowing that, even on a wet November morning, you can change lives.

Mike Ingham is Creative Manager for Performance in Education.
t: 07501 060303
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