This term, Year 8 have been studying puppetry in Drama, starting online at home and continuing in person following the return to onsite learning in the studio.
The students worked collaboratively to create large paper puppets, inspired by Japanese ‘Bunraku’ puppetry. The biggest challenge was working together to bring the puppet to life and get it moving, incorporating small movements to add authenticity.
The final element to the project was to write a monologue for each puppet. These were inspired by lockdown experiences, based on the students themselves, a famous person or someone they know. This helped the students to reflect on the past year and the ways in which the pandemic has affected people in different ways.
Year 8 also reflected on how they used High Performance Learning Behaviours in this topic and the recognised the importance of resilience; “We kept trying when we found it hard to control our puppet”, risk-taking and confidence; “We have tried new ideas and taken risks with what to do”, “We performed our puppet pieces, even when we were worried they would go wrong or be embarrassing. We all had to be confident.”
