These pages share work from Big Brum’s emerging partnership model with primary schools between January 2022 and July 2024.

The company tested this model – with theatre at its heart – across multiple year groups in six West Midlands primary schools. The need for this grew out of the experience of the Covid-19 crisis and the subsequent need for all kinds of ‘recovery’: for children, teachers, schools’ culture, their communities and for the company itself. The work shared here has generated fresh thinking as we take the model forward into further schools and communities.

The Creating ‘Schools of Recovery’ project has been generously supported by the Paul Hamlyn Foundation.

The pages:

  • revisit and reflect on the project story; 

  • share the report from a commission of expert evaluators, who each looked at different aspects of the partnership model;

  • share short films from expert evaluators;

  • supplement the report with additional material from evaluators, teachers and children;

  • provide onward links to resources for teachers and educators made possible through the project.