Moving On Up

Do you have a child going in to year six, or moving up to secondary school in September? Do you care for a young person about to start sixth form? Or someone that is nervous about a new school year?

On Saturday 2 September, we are hosting Moving On Up, a special workshop for those aged 10-16 designed by YATI teacher Anna Devlin to help young people explore their feelings about moving on up through school, boost confidence, and equip them with skills to thrive in these social situations that can feel challenging.

The aim of this workshop is to give young people an opportunity to explore some of the feelings they have about moving on to the next stage of their education in a creative way. Using a theatrical setting can be really helpful in giving a level of distance from their own situations, making it easier to process how they’re feeling. We hope that after our workshop students will feel a level of relief having had a platform to express their feelings and will recognise that they aren’t alone in how they feel about moving on. Additionally, it will hopefully have opened up a channel of communication about the matter with their peers and family.

To give a sense of what the workshop will include, two of our planned activities include:

- Devising scenes based on feelings around moving on. We will ask the kids how they’re feeling about moving on to big school, into a new year, or into sixth form, and then ask them to create short devised pieces that express that feeling. For example, if ‘nervous’ comes up, we might expect a short scene that expresses the word nervous. This could be a scene related or unrelated to moving schools, on waiting for exam results, going on a roller coaster or even a more abstract expression.

- Character work exercises. Sometimes when moving on to a new school or new year, it can be scary imagining establishing your own character in this new setting. We will give each student a piece of costume or a prop and they will become the character they believe would wear or use this. They will then introduce themselves as their new characters to each other. We will then ask them to create short fun scenes in groups using their new characters and a stimulus provided by us.

Anna is an actor and director who trained at YATI. Her recent professional acting credits include: All the Money in the World, 12 Monkeys, Hanna, and The Nevers for HBO.