CrossWords by Paul Birch

 Synopsis: Hillview Primary School has a big problem. The children are at war with each other. To make matters worse the school is in a larger community which is at war with itself.  Too many cross words are being spoken and everyone is getting angry and confused. The adults can’t seem to solve this puzzle. The Mayor talks nonsense, the journalist spreads gossip and the parents, well, the parents are exhausted. Nothing seems to work. Nothing fits. In fact, when it comes to working things out nothing makes sense anymore. The children don’t know what to do and they don’t have the words to fix things. The grown-ups aren’t listening and so the young people have do something - but what? Then, the sky mysteriously changes colour and a storm threatens. A storm that will change everything…

Curriculum links: PSHE, Literacy, Drama

SMALL FRY by Neil Duffield

Synopsis: Set in a world of greed and power-mongering where no-one tells the truth or plays by the rules. Trickery, deceit, betrayal, blackmail, bluff and double bluff are the order of the day. Nobody trusts anyone else, nothing is taken at face value, and suspicion rules.

There are two groups – ‘Predators’ and ‘Scavengers’. Predators are tough, powerful and aggressive. They rely on strength and force to win the day. Scavengers are street-wise, light-fingered, opportunistic. Live on their wits. These two groups are engaged in an on-going battle for survival with no rules and no quarter given. But there is another, much more powerful player. Secretive, malevolent, omni-present, ‘The Dragon’ swallows up anything and anyone that crosses its path.  Into this cut-throat world stumbles ‘Small Fry’. Outsiders. Innocent, naïve, cheerful, trusting, honest. Lambs to the slaughter…….or so everyone thinks. But things don’t turn out quite as expected.

Themes: Contrasting moralities - bullying, greed, selfishness, dishonesty versus truthfulness and cooperation.

WAKE UP! By Jenna Drury

Synopsis: Sam is 10 years old. She knows all there is to know about Bornean orang-utans. Sam has even made her best friends a gang of imaginary apes! This endangered menagerie are there for Sam no matter what, but she does worry about them. Day by day, climate anxiety creeps out of the news and into Sam’s nightmares. Her family are too preoccupied with their daily squabbles to notice Sam’s darkening state of mind. Step up new kid on the block, Billy Brisk. Billy and his imaginary Shark, Charlie, are eco-warriors. When Sam connects deforestation to the stuff in her home and the chocolate made right here her city, Billy calls for Direct Action. But who is going to listen to a bunch of kids and their imaginary friends? And when will the grown-ups wake up to the call of wild animals in peril?

Notes from the playwright: This is a play about climate anxiety, the dark and light of a child’s imagination and the superpower of the young to hit the headlines. After all, would anyone have heard of Greta Thunberg if she had been a forty year old bald bloke?!

Key themes: Deforestation and palm oil, Endangered animals,Taking action to protect the environment,

Climate anxiety, Empowering children and Physical Theatre.

OUR TIME WITH MISS X by Rina Vergano

SYNOPSIS: The children of Class 6b are feeling floppy and bored by SATs revision, when an eccentric and somewhat mystical supply teacher, Miss X, enters their classroom. Over the next five days she turns the curriculum on its head and makes learning fun again, as well as truly educational. Together they explore ancient history, science, cosmology, language, conflict resolution, random acts of kindness, circle time and caring for the earth, all done with a sprinkling of hip-hop, cake baking and drama. Miss X believes that time is elastic and children shouldn’t be rushed - she even factors in time to Do Nothing At All. OUR TIME WITH MISS X is an entertaining experiment in what happens for the better when the heart is put back into learning, and children are inspired to think more deeply and creatively about themselves and their place in the classroom and the world.

CURRICULUM LINKS / KEY THEMES: History, ancient history, earth sciences, science, environmental studies, English language/creative writing/poetry, PGCE, Renaissance philosophy and thinking, drama, experimentation, creative problem solving, critical thinking, social skills, Democratic Education model.

The Last (Plastic) Straw by Rae Mainwaring

Synopsis: Climate change is affecting the planet, and the children of the world want change!! When the adult leaders don’t take them seriously, they decide to come together, take direct action, and make their voices heard. Join Sir Antony Battenburg Biscuit, TV presenter, environmentalist, and all-round national treasure, as he observes the natural world in peril and marvels at the young people battling to get their world leaders to wake up.

Key Themes: Climate change, Protest, Strike action, the accumulative power of small changes, Ocean Pollution,

Recycling/upcycling and Working together

In the Shadow of the Quarks by Bridget Foreman

Synopsis: When Lady Shadow and Lord Quark part, the land divides into Shadows and Quarks – those who ask ‘Why?’ and those who ask ‘How?’. But when the river runs dry and nature herself fractures, Shadow Adam and Quark Iona are sent to investigate. As Lady Shadow grows sicker, and Lord Quark starts gabbling nonsense, Adam and Iona have to work together to solve a riddle that unlocks the past and carries the key to healing the future. In the Shadow of the Quarks asks us to think about what happens when we limit ourselves to narrow perceptions of the world we inhabit. It’s a joyful celebration of the richness and variety of our understanding.

 KS 1 & 2 Curriculum Links: English, Science, RE

Little Criminals by Evan Placey

Synopsis: A crowded courtroom. A noisy gallery. Boisterous press who have already decided the verdict before the trial’s begun. A gasping jury. The case all the more shocking because the group of defendants are all children. The charges the gang of youths face: Breaking and Entering. Theft. Murder.

The evidence is not in dispute: empty porridge bowls and broken chairs; a cut-down beanstalk and a smashed golden egg; an open nursery window with a shadow left behind; a dead witch in an oven. But how clear-cut is guilt?

Little Criminals is a courtroom drama told in rhyme – featuring children’s favourite fairy tale characters in the dock. As the trial unfolds, key questions emerge – how much were these children responsible for their actions and how much were they the victims of circumstance?

Themes/Curriculum: The drama uses the courtroom drama to reimagine perspectives of familiar fairytales and examine how we criminalise young people. It explores difficult questions of why children do “bad” and asks children to think about the wider society they live in. It will cast aside notions of black and white, and force young people to think about the grey area of moral questions and understandings of right and wrong. It also seeks to encourage young people to ask themselves questions about their own responsibilities for their actions and those of their peers.

Speaking in verse/rhyme would be useful for Literacy lessons, as well as the retelling of familiar stories from different points of view. The themes of bullying, poverty, and the desire to fit in are useful for PSHE. There’s also an opportunity for team building/ team work as there’s choral/chorus work to explore and the legal system can link with Citizenship.

Dark Age by Richard Hurford

Synopsis: A vast dump contains a Palace of Light, surrounded by the Moth camp - a colony of feral children and an aged, story-teller Auntie. The Moths sleep by day, waking at dusk to stare at the brilliantly lit Palace. Too mesmerised to fend for themselves they are dying. The palace court – headed by an inquisitive child Queen – worships old electrical appliances but no one remembers what they’re for or how to make them work. The Queen learns about the Moths’ situation and invites them to share the palace’s resources. Once inside, the Moths realise Auntie’s stories contain the instructions to make the old appliances work again. Moths and Palace alike embark on a frenzy of electrical waste. The generator fails. Darkness. Torchlit faces recount the history of the terrible 2020 Energy Wars, which destroyed civilisation. The dump is the site of a lost city – the same city where the play is being performed today.

Themes: Environmental responsibility, Energy over-consumption, Consumerism, Collective responsibility, Making changes to protect the people and the planet, Questioning narratives and Decoding narratives.

The Force of Nature by Danusia Iwaszko

Synopsis: Summer wants to take over the climate with the help of Winter. She wants the earth to burn and freeze, she likes extremes. She also wants to get rid of Autumn and Spring, which she thinks are wishy-washy seasons. So she calls a climate summit, inviting the seasons and the other elements, wind, mist, thunder and lightning, and tells them that this is what humans want. The summit is  watched over by the Sun and Moon who want to talk some sense into humans to get them to see what they’re doing to the planet. Will they succeed? Who knows?

This is a large cast play of 29 characters with interchangeable genders.

The Seal Wife by Brendan Murray

Synopsis: The text itself is consciously poetic and tells how a lonely fisherman, in love with a beautiful selkie maiden, tricks her into becoming his wife and the mother of their seven children - and how, when she discovers the truth, she leaves them to return to her watery world. In this version, the children later join her beneath the waves, only to return to their repentant, grieving father, united in love and sorrow when they hear on the wind the song of their dear, departed mother.