Charities and Community
Hopwood Hall Further Education College
Storytelling and Drama Skills for Teaching

Situation:
Hopwood Hall Further Education College wanted a 2-hour workshop as part of their staff-training day. This was to be an opportunity for the participants to learn new skills, review old ones and experience a variety of the creative approaches used by other professionals, such as TheWholeStory. Taking part would be ESOL, English and Maths teachers, each of whom were to learn tools that could be applied in the classroom.

Solution:
TheWholeStory devised and ran an intense workshop in two parts. The delegates participated in a selection of theatre exercises and games and understood what benefits they would bring to their own classes, as well as the best context in which they might be employed. In the second period, each of the delegates devised and worked on an autobiographical story, to facilitate their understanding of storytelling and to identify how they could apply it.

Results:
All participants worked extremely hard and during the workshop were able to re-connect with the pleasure of both teaching and learning. The group held in high esteem their teamwork and group dynamics and now had new practical tools with which to instil such values within their classes.

"Working with TheWholeStory…was an absolute pleasure. They quickly understood the brief and came up with a workshop that was inspiring, creative and fun. I felt confident to leave them to develop the work and feedback from our clients has been very positive. I will most definitely be using them again."


Anna Rank - Regional Client Involvement Officer, London Carr-Gomm Society.