King’s Liverpool students had an unbelievable night at the NOW Festival last month. The Year 9 students won ‘Best Mental Health Message’ award and the Merseyside Youth Association award for ‘Creating Positive and Lasting Change’.
Over the past few months the students have been working on a devised performance taking inspiration from a series of stories that have struck a chord with them. Themes tackled include the plight of young refugees, being in foster care, hate crimes and being different. Students performed using epic theatre and narration, styles that are important for their forthcoming GCSEs. When describing their performance the students had this to say:
‘People often feel that they are the only one’s suffering and keep things bottled up because they think that that no-one else will understand. The aim of our piece is to try to encourage people to open up, share their feelings with each other and support those around us that need help.’
The students performed a mature piece of theatre to a large audience at the Epstein Theatre and gained experience in performance preparation and working with outside professionals and practitioners.
We are immensely proud of what they have achieved. Well done!