Burning red fireweed

Global Warriors

Fallibroome Creativity Week, 2019

Crab masks taking shape

At the Beach

storymap and puppets

Have you walked on the sand?

Pink sand and seaweed,

Yellow sand and

Red ribbonweed.

There is red coral under the waves

And rocks and

Light green, square jellyfish.

There are

Pufferfish here

And bubbles,

Giant blue fish

And sharks.

There are

Stones here and shells 

and smiling jellyfish.

There is red fireweed here.

It burns

From Gawsworth Primary School, Year 1

precise drawing!

Every February, Fallibroome Academy in Macclesfield coordinates a Creativity Week with the other schools of the multi-academy Fallibroome Trust. This year’s theme “Global Warriors” produced some wonderful work. At an evening of shared performances, there was a song written by children from all the schools skillfully weaving lines and chants from different schools into a single whole. There were dances, too, and some wonderful drumming, some telling drama and lots of delight. One school was riasing funds towards supporting an orang-utan orphanage in Malysia (hope I've got that right). Others were taking up pledges and working to reduce their own plastic footprints.

One of the strands within the Warriors theme was marine pollution, especially plastic pollution, which is where Creeping Toad came in….I spent a week wallowing in the despair of seas….or not quite. The impact of plastics on marine life set my groups off…..

a fish sees its fate in plastic

As a storyteller, I am often in an awkward situation with modern issues like pollution. There is little comparable in the story-record. Telling tales that have grown over centuries there is not much that directly addresses situations like a whale trapped in abandoned fishing nets. Yes, I know that the underlying principles of respect, connectedness and belonging always apply but that isn’t the point here!

So, as we went through the week, I told old stories and we listened for new stories and tried one school’s stories on the next one I worked with….

"The orca and the angel fish"

We heard about the ray that swallowed a plastic bottle thinking its shining shape was an ailing fish and the rescue attempts that followed by its friend a dolphin and the Doctor Lobster and sometimes by a child with courageous fingers and a long reach.

We recoiled from the misadventures of the school visit to a litter-strewn beach.

We encountered the Genius Fish who was finding ways of processing plastic so fish could use it.

We met the whales who were simply flipping rubbish onto the decks or preferably the heads of passengers of ships who were passing.

We made puppets.

Drew storylandscapes of marine worlds.

Made an unfolding sea.

Created ecologies of plastic creatures.

We had fun.

we entered freshwater - aoxlotl hats!

This post sets out to catch my activities. There will be other posts from individual schools and rumour has it an instagram post from Fallibroome of the Global Warriors song performance which I will add as links as I find them….

a scrap coral reef

Meanwhile, many thanks to all the artists, welcoming teachers 

and enthusiastic schools of the Fallibroome family

A gleaming stone

A wyrm uncoils and Grendel's Mum sighs...

Adlington Primary School

Fallibroome Creativity Week

 We started with Grendel, a good place to start, unravelling the mystery of the dweller in the swamp, alliterating the patterns of his life and his mother, and weaving our own heroic adventures.

on the outskirts of Jotunheim, in a wild wood where dark shadows moved,
slimy samon surfaced in the shallow river where wombats wobble in the wicker weeds

In a deep, dark forest,
Tall trees tower in a wailing wind
While the wolf wove his path through the blackness

And through a cave where strange creatures crept in sinister shadows
Spiders spun stunning webs while waiting to snare slimy slugs
And have them for their terriic tea

A river rushing, racing, raging over round rocks dashing down, down, down into
the deepest darkest swamps where savage snakes are joyfully jogging and jumping

A crumbling castle on a crumbling crag where
Wandering werewolves wailed and terrorized the trembling townsfolk

We moved onto artefacts, choosing treasures from my hoard: shells, brass shoes, horns, a goblet, a chest, a tankard made of pewter, another of horn, the dark glass of a necklace salvaged from the windswept wreckage of a viking longship

It’s a masterpiece from a mermaid who paints. It was given to me by the mermaid herself on a journey through a mystical ocean. Gold fish with delicate tails are painted onto the blackness of the wondrous sea stone with grace, care and skill. The gleaming fish are a glittering gold and look lke queens in the blackness. And when I hold it the centre shines like the sun as it sinks below the horizon.

the beginning of a wonderful wolfskin story

 

With many thanks to the teachers and artists of Adlington, and to all the schools I visited in  Creativity Week. i took lot of photos which my camera seems to have  eaten them!

 

The mysteries of Fallibroome

Magic, mystery and wild imagination

Fallibroome Creativity Week

13 - 18th February 2017 

The Wizard of Alderley

  

What a week that was! I’ve arrived at Sunday after 5 days (Saturday was caught up in remarkably sensible discussions elsewhere)of giants and aliens, adventurous children, terrible dragons, a wizard, a horse and a set of sleeping knights, 100 painting, gluing artists, an eagle…

It begins to read like a shopping list for an adventure tale – but that would be another story

This week was Fallibroome Academy’s Creativity Week (this year’s theme was “Magic and Mystery”) where children from the partner primary schools all throw themselves (quite literally, there is a lots of dance and drama) into days that set imaginations free and running

Dragon 7

He arrives like curtains drawn across the sun

An exploding volcano of a dragon

His teeth are a saw,

Housed in the doom of his jaws

Eyes that glow as bright as lava,

Welcome you to the burning pools of his heart

first ideas for aliens

Trips to the Whitworth and Manchester Art Galleries, rub creative shoulders with adventurous science, dance workshops, Forest School and…I’m involved as one of the artists so tend to get swallowed by my sessions and don’t really build a sense of the whole thing other than the sheer scale of the organisation. But it is wild and wonderful and the Thursday evening sees a sharing event at Fallibroome where children and excited families fill the whole theatre. This year we saw dancing cats (well done, Mottram!), an almost abstract Wizard of Alderley (Nether Alderley – magnificent), the Wizard as a drama, Peter Pan in 5 minutes (well controlled, Tinkerbell). There were sound experiments on stage, a wonderful rescue of a stolen bride with fire breathers and jugglers and dancers (just what every rescue needs) and Fallibroome’s own dance club showed just what out of school clubs can offer determined young people. (Apologies for anyone I missed)

Dragon 5. 

Angry lightning,

A Lion’s roar,

A midnight evil,

Her heart a closed door

enchantment window in progress

But for my sessions….we went from charming – aliens from the book “The Loon in the Moon”, to mysterious – enchantment windows (you never know what you might see when you look through – we hoped for unicorns), to magnificent – a 3metre long frieze of Alderley Edge with contributions from 90 children, to captivating…images of the storytowers will follow. I did lots. The children I worked with did more. I thoroughly enjoyed myself and hope children did too!

a small but cheerful alien

Then we hit the Bollinbrook Dragons….I make no judgement, just post some of the reports below. The photos didn’t even get that far

 

Dragon 1. 

Diamond bright eyes in lizard scale skin

Dagger teeth are butcher’s knives

And his breath scorches in a shotgun blast

And his soul,

His frozen soul would freeze your heart

Dragon 2. 

She is a bright summer day until you open the wardrobe doors of her heart

Bedrock bones and dagger teeth,

With cheetah stealth she’ll stalk you,

Watching from eyes as cold as glaciers,

Welcoming you into the cauldron of her mouth

And the dark abyss of her winter soul

And we ended with the Friday afternoon giants of Mottram. At least we can end on some smiling faces. Don’t know what they are smiling about, of course...

Giant

Our giant is a stormy night in winter

With arms that cling as tight and wrap as strongly as a squid’s tentacles

His fingers prickles like cactus spines

He is an exercise machine of a giant,

Fast, strong, relentless,

Spring-loading his legs into trampolines,

He hammers people as nails into the ground,

But his hunger,

His hunger is a black hole that could swallow whole worlds.

at least some of our giants smiled!

With many thanks to all the staff and children (and apologies to the cleaners) of

Whirley Primary School

Bollinbrook Primary School

Upton Priory Primary School

Nether Alderley Primary School

Mottram St Andrew Primary School

And Fallibroome Academy!

Wandering houses and Titania’s troubles

Wandering houses and Titania’s troubles

Fallibroome Arts Week, 2016

The mountains of Ancient Greece

a temple from Ancient Greece

 A week of slightly deranged creativity draws to a cheerful close. These last 5 days have bounced me from Leek to Blackshaw Moor to Nether Alderley, Prestbury and Whirley. This could simply be a collection of delightful names if the names weren’t also accompanied by some delightful people

The majority of workshops were part of the magnificent Fallibroome Academy’s Arts Week where they coordinate arts input, trips and performances among the Academy’s feeder primaries where teachers take workshops to each other schools, classes go on trips to art galleries and the likes of me come into school and disturb the equilibrium a bit….

 

retelling myths

This has been my third year as part of Arts Week and I love it! I meet wildly enthusiastic children in friendly schools where people just dive in and have a go at whatever gets thrown at them…..

In Nether Alderley, we met Victorian explorers and the people, buildings and myths of Ancient Greece

The Storm.

Clouds in the sky,

Rain is coming.

Tip, tap,

Raindrops going tip, tip tap.

People in the puddles go splish, splash, splosh

While the thunder bangs and lightning crashes

With bobble hats and boots

Or no hats, no shoes, no long trousers, only shorts

We go out in the rain and the rain goes splash

And the wind goes whoosh

A storm strong enough to blow us away!

Running home,

Running home

Wet footprints in the hall

(Whirley Primary School, Reception)

At Whirley Primary School, we also discovered the scenes that Shakespeare missed out of Midsummer Night’s Dream

 

he forgot the angry trees

...and the dramatic castles

...he didn't tell us that Demetrius was carrying a ring

 And today in Prestbury Primary’s Reception classes, we heard of adventures….

 

brave nights cross a bridge over a river

There was the house that needed a pee, so it stood up and went for a walk. Eventually it found a swimming pool and relieved itself but having tasted freedom, the house didn’t want to go back to its own place in the  street and wandered off exploring. It found a cave and squeezed inside looking for treasure. But the cave was the home of a lion who, alarmed by the arrival of a whole house, roared! The house was so frightened that it ran all the way home and jumped into its space in the street. But it was in a such a hurry that it landed the wrong way round with its back door where the front door should be*. If you walk through Prestbury now, you might find the back-to-front house and then you will know it is the house that went for a walk

an adventure storyboard

 

an adventure following a path through a wood and flowers

Or there was the pirate who lived in a tall, beautiful house that had no kitchen, So he went off hunting for a kitchen. He looked in the wood of blue and yellow trees: no kitchens here. He looked under the bridge where the trolls lived: no kitchens here. He went into outer space on Alexander’s Flying Boat. They few to the Dark and Dangerous Planet: no kitchens here. They went to Saturn: no kitchens here! Coming back to Earth, the pirate went into a shop in Macclesfield: kitchens! Kitchens! Being a pirate he tried to steal a kitchen but it was too big to carry. So he went home and dug up some of the treasure he had hidden under his bed and went back and paid for a kitchen. Now he is a happy pirate

 Many thanks to the artists and storytellers of Nether Alderley, 

Whirley and Prestbury Primary Schools

* It is just possible that the house ended up upside down, “like that house in London”.

 

Midsummer Night's Dream: the Fairy Woodland

Taking flight....

Taking flight….

Fallibroome Creativity Week

9 -13th Feb 2015

I thought these palm trees were amazing!
Mottram Reception class

What a week that was! Dragons, monster, flying carpets, Icarus falling out of the sky all over again ( will that boy never listen? never learn?), shadow puppets….

Once a year, in a spectacular commitment to their feeder primary schools, The Fallibroome Academy (a Specialist Arts College) in Macclesfield organises a Creativity Week that either places creative types in those schools, or supports other visitors, or facilitates out of school visits to art galleries and museums.

 

walking through dangerous woods, Broken Cross Key Stage 1

The scale of it leaves me gasping a bit. There are 8 schools and, I think, something happening in each school every day. I'm sure Fallibroome will document to extent of their own organisational skill! Here, I want to celebrate the schools who hosted me and the children, teachers and support staff I worked with…There are some pictures but not a lot - too busy for cameras a lot of the time! (So if any school people out there have pictures, send them through please!)

 

"we ate ice creams in the rain with a pink unicorn",
Broken Cross Key Stage 1

But my week ran:

         from feathering Icarus on Monday morning to carrier bag dragons in the afternoon.

Dragon hatching

  

Dragon 1

      

 

Dragon, 2

 Tuesday unfolded with everyone in Broken Cross Primary School. There were long pictures unrolling in scribbles across the floor, adventures being told, pop-up stories made. We started with the film "Up" and it's first five minutes but that lovely starting point got left behind as we picked up speed….

 

the Gingerbread Man visited Candyland

         Wednesday: and I was off making Chinese Dragons in Buxton Museum, but that's another story!

        

designing dragons

Thursday: and a Reception class (Mottram) set off on a flying carpet (losing a few folk when we went round corners but we had a whole class so we thought with commendable lack of concern,  what's a few children here and there? Our carpet unravelled into personal fragments and children made the landscapes they visited: seasides, icy wastes, jungles, deep waters and high mountains were all touched

And then there were shadow puppets….from a quidditch match - broadcast on Wizardly Flickervision that very Thursday evening to some 500 visitors in Fallibroome Theatre - to ravening dragons on Friday at Upton

Big eyes are watching,

Sharp claws are tearing,

Long teeth are shredding,

Pointed tail is stabbing,

Pigeon wings are fluttering

But golden scales shine bright and

This dragon glows like a sunrise

So, thank you all!

The Fallibroome Academy

Bollinbrook CE Primary School

Broken Cross Community Primary School

Mottram St Andrew Primary Academy

Upton Priory Primary School

Thanks for your enthusiasm, readiness to plunge in and make and improvise and do and for just having a go!

It was a delight to work with you all!

and we might as well end on a sinister note
with the path through the wood to a suspicious house

and a witch's spellbook built into the pop-up

Large eagles and small people

Fallibroome Arts Week (3)

Large eagles and small people

The badge of Nether Alderley Primary School is an eagle, linking them to local folklore and the Stanley family. Almost inevitably, when this old Toad got his clammy amphibian fingers on the idea it changed a bit. We spent a day telling eagle stories, making up eagle stories, fabricating furiously and being as convincing as possible about our own adventures when ....

It picked me up! It picked me up! I was in the playground when this huge eagle... My hat blew off and I never saw it again...I was eating an ice-cream and when I got really high in the air it fell off the cone and landed on a teacher in the playground....I went away round the world, it was very exciting, I am never coming back...

So we spent a day where "every feather tells a story" with everyone in the school making at least one story-feather for our huge school eagle (wingspan about 4m).

an Interim Eagle: the shoulder spike would be
trimmed and the wings given their final position -
photo to follow!

A classroom in Broken Cross Community School doubled its complement of characters with a swarm of small puppet people with everyone from cheetah's to goblins and a very fat little devil.  We used props: pine cones, plates, kettles, goblets and tankards to set ideas in motion and build characters around objects. There were princesses holding their golden goblets, pirates with treasures and some beautiful dragons....