White Woman Lane School - Finding Voices

Norfolk and Norwich Festival

Groups of young people at a Norfolk junior school learn to take risks and find their voices in a project that took their school radio station to a new level.

The ‘Finding Voices’ project was undertaken by White Woman Lane School, Sprowston, Norfolk as part of their Enquiry School programme and used the school radio station in order to help pupils discover, explore and develop their collective and individual voices.
The school wanted to investigate the following question: ‘Can the use of a school radio station improve the articulation, vocabulary, confidence and voice of our students?’ It was identified that a percentage of students at the school struggled to articulate themselves confidently in conversation and writing.

This enquiry aimed to:

• Draw out pupils’ critical appraisal skills and discover cultural opinions.
• Encourage students to take ownership of radio productions and gain valuable media skills.
• Create and sustain a medium in which staff, practitioners and pupils are able to take risks in exploring their voice, developing verbal spontaneity and managing personal expression.
• Generate student discussions, developing leadership skills and decision-making abilities.

The focus group for the project was 40 low-ability students from Years 3 and 5 and 25 high ability students from Years 6 and 4.

Three creative practitioners were brought in to support the project: Sebastiana Mikulova, a voice therapist, Ross Sutherland, a live literature artist and Rebecca Chapman, a drama and radio artist.

Sebastina Mikulova worked with low ability pupils (LAPs) from Years 3 and 5 who had difficulty with self-esteem, vocal range and self-expression. She led the students through a series of experimental and experiential sessions. These included ‘call and response’ games in which they had the opportunity to take the lead as they made and mimicked gestures and voices.

Ross Sutherland and Rebecca Chapman collaborated to facilitate sessions in which students from Years 4 and 6 could create poems, sketches and interviews for radio. The young people discussed which activities and practitioners they were keen to work with in sessions with teachers and creative agent, Deb Hoy. A range of sessions was set up which included whole class collaborative poetry creation and workshops on interview and debate techniques and programme production.

Students created whole class poetry, group vignettes and interviewed one another about solo performances of their poems. The practitioners supported students encouraging them to take ownership of the radio station and discover new ways to use it imaginatively. Following one of these sessions, a group of year six pupils took part in Exchange Radio in Norwich. Their interview of MP for Norwich North, Chloe Smith was noted as the most professional and well conducted ever heard by the organisation.

Another addition to the project was a day spent with BBC Voices for a group of 14 high ability Year 6 pupils which encouraged them to further contextualise their experiences in a professional broadcast situation.
One Year 6 pupil commented, ‘I feel a lot more confident now – can do interviewing easily. My voice has got much louder and I can talk more fluently. Before, I was nervous about working by myself [on creative writing projects] but now I’m much more comfortable with it.’

Outcomes

• Pupils developing a ‘conversational’ manner and tone whilst presenting radio programs.
• The students taking risks in the way they address different audiences, speaking in front of each other and in front of a microphone.
• The project is also challenging how pupils communicate with teachers, practitioners and one another, and it is increasing their capacity to articulate their thoughts.
• The project is teaching media skills, developing personal ownership of the radio station, encouraging both high and low ability students to have confidence and to express themselves.

Creative Partnerships co-ordinator, Richard Queensborough said: ‘I feel that the school has achieved the core aims of the project in so much that many of our pupils are no longer handicapped by inhibition when using the radio station. Nor are they daunted by the experience of having to interview each other or adults. In fact, once they have donned a pair of headphones and the ‘mic live’ light is on, some of the pupils have blossomed into quite cheeky characters! We live in the media age and pupils at this school have become keen to embrace the technological and social challenges that this project has provided for them.’