By: Lucy Donald – Project Manager, Tiny Tales
March 2024
Tiny Tales is Theatre Royal Plymouth’s bespoke story-telling Early Years Foundation Stage project.
Over the last two years, we’ve been working with the Foundation/Reception children across four primary schools in the Reach South Academy Trust. TRP, teachers and practitioners have worked collaboratively to develop creative play and drama-based learning opportunities. The initial goal of the project was to increase young people’s oracy skills, with many other successes emerging along the way.
Working with Teachers and Teaching Assistants, the Project Delivery Team planned sessions around each classes reading book of the week, including The Three Little Pigs, We’re Going on a Bear Hunt, and Goldilocks and the Three Bears. The Project Delivery Team use song, movement, props and puppets, dance, role play, Makaton, games, reflection, and making activities during the sessions.
To date, this iteration of Tiny Tales has:
- Delivered 176 sessions
- Engaged with 177 children in Plymouth
- Taken 144 children to the theatre
- Toured TRP’s festive early years show, Winter Lights, to all four schools
- Provided 6 local artists with regular employment
Tiny Tales demonstrates that creative play has holistic benefits, and young people and schools experience significant positive changes beyond the initial goal of developing oracy and communication skills.
One of the highlights of the project was the Winter Lights tour to the schools. Winter Lights took children on a festive adventure through the ice, snow, and lights of the Arctic, encountering friendly snow beasts and stumbling upon reindeer on this enchanted, sensory adventure. Tiny Tales practitioners were heavily involved in the show, performing to the young people they work with week in and week out, bringing storytelling to them.
Tiny Tales will run until July 2024.
Tiny Tales is funded by the Paul Hamlyn Foundation.