Schools

Morley Arts Festival schools programme is internationally acclaimed for its successful and continued engagement with all our 17 schools and academies.

This year we are moving away from the traditional literature focus and inviting all primary school children across the borough to attend a live performance of ‘Explore’, complementing with our theme to mark the 50th anniversary of the moon landings. Pupils from years 4 & 5 will join in the fun as we invite theatre in education company, Rainbow Factory to perform this bespoke production.

 

Two aliens who are out exploring the universe, stumble across a strange floating object… The Voyager! They see and hear messages about somewhere called ‘Earth’ so the aliens set out to discover more. They start by landing on a rock floating around a beautiful blue and green planet, when they land they notice footprints imprinted onto the surface. This sets the aliens off on a mission to learn more and explore this interesting new place. 

Rainbow Factory are a Leeds based theatre in education company who believe in the power of storytelling and imagination. Their mission is to inspire children to develop and expand a love of theatre by exploring stories through the arts.

We are delighted to be working in partnership with Rainbow Factory enabling young people to explore theatre through this exciting live performance.

Gildersome and Birchfield Primary Schools will be enjoying a visit during the Festival from Conrad Burdekin. A fun, unique, and enthusiastic writer, storyteller and poet who inspires children up and down the country to want to write. A lover of books and a proud Yorkshireman, Conrad Burdekin is appearing at this year’s Festival to deliver interactive literacy workshops.  Using his MA in Creative Writing, Conrad uses this as a springboard, working in schools all across the country inspiring children to write. Sharing his stories and poems with children, and inspiring them to believe that they, too, can become writers.

Conrad’s influences in his love of books and writing, are people like Roald Dahl, Enid Blyton, and his wonderful Year 4 teacher, Mrs Johnson. He hopes that he can have a similar influence on the children he meets, inspiring them to believe that they, too, can write creatively.  Conrad has written four books of children’s poetry, a picture book, and many short stories which are frequently used in his school workshops.

Contrary to popular belief, Conrad is not fifty, he does not have a beard, and his name is not Colin. He can, however, confirm that he is tall, he does have a big, booming laugh, and loves cricket and Lego almost as much as he loves books.

This event is kindly supported by Gildersome Parish Council