Can you Keep a Secret ? Storytelling addressing issues of secrecy and disclosure. Tom and the Trolls Project on Bullying. Commissioned by Cheshire Child Protection Services. Family Snapshot Project on family breakdown. Commissioned by Essex Education Welfare Services. Talking in Circles Project on Circle Time. Commissioned by Cheshire Child Protection Services. Crime in Art Project on vandalism. Commissioned by Cambridgeshire Police in 1998. New Tales For Old A retelling of the Red Riding Hood Story drawing on stranger issues and providing a springboard into a workshop on story-making. Pooh and Friends A retelling of the Milne stories and poems with simplified language. Living Verse Poetry project with an integral creative writing workshop. Tom and the Trolls Befriended by a group of Trolls, Tom can not understand it when he becomes the victim of their games. The story traces how he is made to feel and how he finds an escape from the bullying behaviour. The project employs the dynamic qualities of storytelling to guide understanding of complex ideas, from the child's perspective. The project was funded by and developed in association with Cheshire County Council through the Child Protection Section of the Education Services Department, and toured with great success in Cheshire from 1994 to 1995, and in Essex from 1995 to 1996 with the backing of County Child Protection and Education Welfare Services. Family Snapshot Family Snapshot tells the story of a child whose parents are splitting up and seeks to raise empathetic awareness of the fear and uncertainty which a change in family circumstances can provoke. Performance and workshops are designed to address children's typical reactions to divorce and highlight positive strategies to help them cope with family breakup, emphasising the positive role of the class in giving mutual acceptance and support. New Tales For Old A radical retelling of the Red Riding Hood Story, with emphasis on the wolf's use of disguise to fool Little Red. The telling acts as a springboard into a detailed workshop identifying the component elements of folk narrative and encouraging the children to adopt a creative approach to characterisation and develop their own stories. Talking in Circles Talking in Circles is a storytelling project for Year One to Year Six based on Circle Time. The telling concentrates on problems caused by poor communication, which are resolved through effective co-operation skills. A number of potential problem resolution strategies such as shouting, intransigence and violence are explore, and there relative merits and demerits exposed, before the application of the circle to the problem enables them to find a compromise solution. The project encourages children to appreciate the value and special qualities of the Circle, and the opportunities Circle Time can offer. It aims to encourage the use of the Circle as a forum for sharing ideas and opinions and listening to each others thoughts and feelings in an atmosphere of equality. Crime in Art Crime in Art was devised with the practical and financial support of Cambridgeshire Police. The objective of this project is to reduce incidents of vandalism in schools and their local environment. A young boy becomes involved in vandalism. In spite of his sense that what he is doing is wrong, he is carried into more and more overtly criminal activities, culminating with breaking into his school to vandalise a classroom. The range of offences covered by criminal damage, or vandalism are identified and their impact on individuals and the community are explored. The project raises awareness of the personal and social costs of vandalism, particularly within the school environment, and aims to increase a sense of children's responsibility to care for the area in which they live and go to school. The circle-based workshops will explore the consequences of vandalism through role-play activities, and structured follow work detailed in the teacher's pack will encourage and empower young people to develop their own initiatives to reduce local problems of crime and vandalism. Can you Keep a Secret? Primary Child Protection Project on Secrets Can you Keep a Secret? tells the story of a child who is told a secret by a friend and faces a dilemma as to what he should do with it. The project addresses the principal problems associated with disclosure frequently experienced by teachers and child welfare professionals: children's unwillingness to tell their secret, and that when they make their disclosure, it is to a friend who is told 'not to tell'. Exploiting the dynamics of storytelling, the story encourages an empathetic understanding that there are all sorts of secrets, and that although most secrets can be fun and even form the basis of strong friendship, some secrets can be less pleasant, and can even hurt to keep. The story emphasises that a secret that hurts does not have to be kept secret, explores the responsibilities of friendship which apply when a secret is shared, and highlights the role of the teacher as an appropriate person to confide in. Living Verse Living Verse is a poetry project for Primary Schools designed to complement your school's work to encourage children to read, appreciate and write verse. A range of nonsense, comic and serious poems are used and the content varied to suit the age of the audience. Living Verse is therefore suitable for all primary children from Reception to Year Six. Classic and modern children's poems are given a strong dramatic treatment shaking the dust off them and enhancing their appeal for a young audience. Sound, colour and music are used to emphasise mood; vocal characterisation and props are exploited to draw the listeners in. Pooh and Friends The Pooh and Friends storytelling project aims to reintroduce AA Milne stories and poems to a young audience, to entertain and enthral, and to provide a starting point for creative writing and art work in the classroom. Pooh and Friends is suitable for Reception and Years One and Two. The project is based on a child-orientated adaptation of Milne's Pooh stories and poetry using language appropriate to a young audience. The stories are dramatised using large toys to enhance their immediacy and impact and to emphasise that Milne was writing about familiar toys from a child's toy chest. The workshop will include simple mask making for younger children and creative activities based on children's toys. The Teacher's Notes include a web diagram indicating starting points for further discussion and activities based on the telling, and lesson plans to use immediately to help children create stories based on the characters of their own toys.