The Pre-Prep department had a real treat this week when ‘Rough Magic' visited us for a day’s Shadow Puppet Workshop. The day began when the Reception children joined Forms 1 and 2 to watch a delightful compilation of a series of Traditional Tales. Big bad wolves, Old women who swallowed flies, trolls and the gingerbread man all came to life with the skill of Don Newton’s storytelling and fired the children’s imagination. Form 2 then spent the whole day taking one of these tales and inventing their own plays by changing the setting and characters.

The settings ranged from Deep Dark Woods to a faraway jungle and characters took the shape of gingerbread people, knights in armour, chickens, monkeys and a ring- tail lemur! Each child made a shadow puppet and then worked in a group to stage their play. As you can imagine, this involved an awful lot of teamwork and co-operation.

Puppeteer, Don Newton, was very impressed by the standard of work achieved and the children’s ability to listen and work alongside each other. At the end of the day Form 1 returned once more for another puppet show, but this time it was the turn of the Year 2 children to take up their own puppets behind the shadow lit screen to produce their alternative tales, as their audience watched appreciatively. Most importantly, the literacy work, involving the re-telling of Fairy Tales, in all three classes has been truly enriched and a good time was had by all.