And this time Pipeline Theatre goes back to school, and asks: why are our children so low on our list of priorities?
Read a paper, go online, watch a party political broadcast, and the recurring discourse (admittedly along with global war and the climate crisis) is about the NHS, pensions, political shenanigans, identity issues, the economy - anything but the most important thing, the thing surely most worth investing in for the future: our children, how we raise and teach them and the schools we put them in.
Schools: now sites of a post-pandemic mental health crisis; smart-phone addiction; crumbling concrete; neuro-diversity on an unprecedented scale; poverty; a recruitment crisis caused by burn-out churn; academy trust dictats and mission statements that bear little relation to the reality on the ground; ultra-processed food, either in lunch-boxes or on canteen trays; an uninspiring exam-driven curriculum; parents too busy, too stressed, too societally marginalised and mistrustful to buy into the system any more on their children’s behalf; and still, even in the midst of all this, in 2024, almost two hundred years after our Victorian forebears were at it - rooms full of rows and rows of chairs, where children are required to sit and be quiet, and ingest knowledge, hour after hour.
You can also find humour, bravery, doggedness, fresh thinking, on-the-fly problem solving, support, kindness, even love. But once those children are on site, what do the rest of us really know? And, parents and teachers aside, which of us really cares?
Our writer, Jon, says:
“Last year I spent some time teaching drama in a local state secondary (years back I used to be a teacher, of languages, unhelpfully). This was after having done a little bit of supply teaching, in Covid-caused fallow times. It was, it has to be said, an out-of-body experience. Now, I might not be the last word in best practice, but this time things felt different, and not always in a good way. It brought home to me that, like nursing, school is also full of front-line workers, less instantly identifiable, and, along with their charges, even less acknowledged. Schools pop up on TV - Waterloo Road, Bad Education - but this is TV-land, where the plot-twist and the set-up and the sight-gag reign supreme. The real world is both smaller and bigger. And theatre is the place to explore that world, and dig out the truth of it.”
With this in mind, we’re now engaged with a new project, set in a local secondary school, about an Early Careers teacher, and a YR-9 misfit who latches on to her. In late 2024 we held a series of local work-in-progress performances of an early draft, where the responses were stunning, and truly inspiring for the next stage (re-drafting and fund-raising). We want to thank everybody who came along, stayed afterwards and left us feedback, just a couple of examples of which are:
“An essential piece of theatre that should be seen by as many people as possible. The actors were so skillful at embodying the roles they both played that it's hard to believe there were only two performers on stage. The play is a masterclass in balancing a truthful heartfelt human story with a clear and undidactic message - who are schools really failing and why?” Jessica Hynes
“As a teacher, this evening has made me feel ‘heard’ in a really important way”
Ultimately it will be everything you’ve always loved about Pipeline shows: indelible characters, eviscerating stories, pin-sharp dialogue and plenty of laughter.
Read a paper, go online, watch a party political broadcast, and the recurring discourse (admittedly along with global war and the climate crisis) is about the NHS, pensions, political shenanigans, identity issues, the economy - anything but the most important thing, the thing surely most worth investing in for the future: our children, how we raise and teach them and the schools we put them in.
Schools: now sites of a post-pandemic mental health crisis; smart-phone addiction; crumbling concrete; neuro-diversity on an unprecedented scale; poverty; a recruitment crisis caused by burn-out churn; academy trust dictats and mission statements that bear little relation to the reality on the ground; ultra-processed food, either in lunch-boxes or on canteen trays; an uninspiring exam-driven curriculum; parents too busy, too stressed, too societally marginalised and mistrustful to buy into the system any more on their children’s behalf; and still, even in the midst of all this, in 2024, almost two hundred years after our Victorian forebears were at it - rooms full of rows and rows of chairs, where children are required to sit and be quiet, and ingest knowledge, hour after hour.
You can also find humour, bravery, doggedness, fresh thinking, on-the-fly problem solving, support, kindness, even love. But once those children are on site, what do the rest of us really know? And, parents and teachers aside, which of us really cares?
Our writer, Jon, says:
“Last year I spent some time teaching drama in a local state secondary (years back I used to be a teacher, of languages, unhelpfully). This was after having done a little bit of supply teaching, in Covid-caused fallow times. It was, it has to be said, an out-of-body experience. Now, I might not be the last word in best practice, but this time things felt different, and not always in a good way. It brought home to me that, like nursing, school is also full of front-line workers, less instantly identifiable, and, along with their charges, even less acknowledged. Schools pop up on TV - Waterloo Road, Bad Education - but this is TV-land, where the plot-twist and the set-up and the sight-gag reign supreme. The real world is both smaller and bigger. And theatre is the place to explore that world, and dig out the truth of it.”
With this in mind, we’re now engaged with a new project, set in a local secondary school, about an Early Careers teacher, and a YR-9 misfit who latches on to her. In late 2024 we held a series of local work-in-progress performances of an early draft, where the responses were stunning, and truly inspiring for the next stage (re-drafting and fund-raising). We want to thank everybody who came along, stayed afterwards and left us feedback, just a couple of examples of which are:
“An essential piece of theatre that should be seen by as many people as possible. The actors were so skillful at embodying the roles they both played that it's hard to believe there were only two performers on stage. The play is a masterclass in balancing a truthful heartfelt human story with a clear and undidactic message - who are schools really failing and why?” Jessica Hynes
“As a teacher, this evening has made me feel ‘heard’ in a really important way”
Ultimately it will be everything you’ve always loved about Pipeline shows: indelible characters, eviscerating stories, pin-sharp dialogue and plenty of laughter.
Images below taken from our 2024 work-in-progress, featuring Hannah Stephens, Anna Munden. Photo credits: Raf Turki