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I had my interview with firefly arts today, I thought it went extremely well. Ricky asked me questions about why I want do do my placement with firefly which led to us having a conversation about my artist statement. I wrote about how I believe that the arts are incredibly important in building confidence and up skilling young people. This was met with enthusiasm from Ricky who told me that firefly feel very similarly. I also expressed my desire to network with likeminded individuals and learn from them in an applied theatre context. I asked questions such as what is the staff dynamic like and Ricky assured me that there's always two facilitators in the room and that Id just slot in and shadow. I expressed my interest in hearing what he thought my main responsibilities were on placement to which he said he wanted me to commit to the team and attend meetings and work with the session leaders to come up with lesson plans. Overall this interview was actually really fun, it was nice to have a chat with a like minded individual regarding issues we are both passionate about.

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Leading 2x workshops with the group, warm ups/ cool downs/ creative tasks

One session per week preferably evenings during the week

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I am a multidisciplinary theatre facilitator based in Edinburgh, Scotland. My whole life I have been passionate about theatre and the performing arts which has played a large role in why I work and create with and for children and young people. I am passionate about educating children through drama whether it be current world issues, history lessons or even through fun games that they can then teach their friends or classmates. I am committed to inclusivity and ensuring that all children, regardless of their background or experience, feel empowered, valued and heard.

I am fueled by my aspiration to destroy the narrative that theatre is insignificant to the development of young minds as I believe that theatre is a powerful tool for personal growth and is essential for creating meaningful connections within young people. In a world that is increasingly focused on digital interactions, I see the theatre as an essential space for this next generation to have important face to face interactions, learn empathy, explore creativity and collaborate with others. I am inspired by young people's stories and experiences and for this reason it is essential to me that I empower these young voices to take the lead during the creative process so that each session is an opportunity for them to express themselves freely.

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Hello! I am writing to you in regard to a potential placement opportunity as a trainee drama and arts facilitator. I am currently studying the BA dance and drama course at Edinburgh college with Kingston University and it is my goal to one day build my own career as a drama facilitator. I have been doing some research into your company and I believe that our views align on multiple aspects.

Something that really resonates with me about your company is your commitment to building confidence in young people. I believe that theatre can be such a strong tool in shaping the minds of children and I really love that this is one of your core values.

Another thing that came up a lot when I was researching was how dedicated you are to creating a safe community for these young individuals. This really aligns with my own views that the arts can have a huge effect on the way that young people view themselves and the world around them.

I feel as though I would be a good candidate for this position as I am really passionate about theatre and creating a career in this field. I am also really interested in working and collaborating with children and young people to support them in developing their skills in lots of different areas. I worked as a childrens entertainer over the summer in 2023. This job gave me so much experience in interacting with children and young people and really cemented that drama facilitating is what I want to do as a professional career. I am PVG certified and I have been provided with sufficient child safeguarding training which will help me if i am successful in securing a placement here.

The chance of working with this company to develop these skills and learn new ones is extremely exciting to me, especially when it is a company that I admire so much. For my course I need to complete 20-40 hours of placement where I would need to lead a maximum of two sessions and I would love to have the opportunity to work alongside your company.  I believe that this opportunity would greatly enhance my knowledge on being a drama facilitator and also will help me to build connections with the type of people I share similar beliefs and ideas with.

Thank you for taking the time to consider my application, my cv is attached below.

Kind regards

Rachel Christie

Hi Rachel,

Thanks for meeting with us earlier in the week. We loved chatting to you and we're delighted to offer you a placement with us. Due to availability etc, we think the group for you to work with that would work best is our Navigators group (P4-P7) who meet on Wednesday's 4pm-5:30pm.

We're currently chatting to the college to make sure your classes can work around this and I'll be in touch with a full schedule once they have confirmed. Any questions in the meantime just get in touch. Thanks,

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Wednesdays 4-5:30 from 27/11/24 until 26/02/25

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2.2- Equalities, Diversity,  Inclusion policy 

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2.2- Equalities, Diversity,  Inclusion policy 

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Firefly are one of the central pillars of positive partnerships across West Lothian. We add arts provision to social services, and social support to arts providers. We add creativity to education provision and improved wellbeing to health provision. Above all, we are the central voice that champions everything and makes West Lothian stand proud. (Firefly Arts n.d.)

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"Whilst on placement with Firefly Arts, Rachel worked alongside myself and Freelance Theatre Practitioner Stephen Will, delivering weekly youth theatre sessions for Firefly’s Navigators group, which is made up of young people P4-P7. This is one of Firefly’s largest groups with around 18 young people attending weekly, and within the group are a number of young people who have been referred to Firefly through our Roots partnership, due to their specific needs and ADHD/ASD diagnoses. Whilst working with the group, Rachel brought a caring and fun energy that the young people instantly warmed to. Rachel was keen to learn from me and Stephen and was consistently a part of planning conversations ahead of sessions as well as reflection conversations after each session. Towards the end of Rachel’s placement, she delivered 2 solo sessions, whilst me and Stephen remained in the room to assist and help manage the young people. Rachel did extremely well to lead these sessions, particularly the first one as the group were extremely energetic and getting them to listen and engage was no easy feat. Whilst planning her solo sessions, Rachel was extremely responsive to feedback and suggestions that I provided and adapted her plan accordingly. She did well to respond in the moment when delivering and did not get stuck on the timings she had expected activities to take. As well as working with her assigned group, The Navigators, Rachel chose to stay later than her placement hours a few weeks to shadow us in delivering our sessions with our older group (S3-S6). It was clear throughout her placement that Rachel was keen to learn, and being involved in our older group allowed her to experience youth theatre and facilitation with a variety of different age groups. It was a real pleasure having Rachel with Firefly and we are glad we were able to support her development and her first time facilitating."

Sent from Ricky Williamson 20/02/25

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25/11/24

Today I had my introduction session with firefly, we got to tour the space and sign our placement paperwork.

I was very surprised by the studio space that this company has, they have a full stage and they recently had a seating bank installed. This tour will really help me to feel more comfortable when my placement officially starts on Wednesday.

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Supporting and developing people (n.d.) Firefly Arts. Available at: https://firefly-arts.co.uk/supporting-and-developing-people (Accessed: 21 February 2025).

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27/11/24

Today we had a very chilled session, it’s the last class until after the Christmas break so we just had a day of playing Christmas games. I introduced myself to my group along with why I’m there on placement and when they should expect me to leave them. The group were very excited about Christmas especially when they got to play an improv game which allowed them to imagine the craziest present they could get. The group took turns to go up and open this imaginary present whilst the rest of the participants had to guess what it could be.

I was shocked at how well some of the individuals did at this activity being so young but they were able to mime the object and characterise how the object moved and made them feel. This really excited me as I knew I could do more activities to build on this with them.

activities played

a Christmas twist on Zombie

shake tickle die

name, yes!

Best present ever

Warewolf

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This was our first session back from the Christmas break so we knew that the group would want to talk about their presents and the fun they had over the holidays. I was genuinely excited to hear all of their stories however I was really concious about the possibility of having individuals who's parents couldn't afford much or people who had difficult home lives hearing about the amount of fun other people had. For this reason I raised my concerns with my mentor who reassured me that they were thinking the same thing, in order to avoid any issues we decided to only bring up Christmas once in the session during the question of the day which was "if you could get Santa to bring you any present what would it be". This was met with a lot of crazy answers such as a kangaroo that has a music speaker in his mouth to a mobile phone. From my sessions here on out I am going to make sure that I lean more on the crazy side of answers so that the group feels more comfortable to use the creativity. This session we

mimed painting a canvas

guess when its been two minutes

pick up the hat

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This session was. really exiting for me as it is the first week I feel like we have really delved into acting with the Navigators. We played the game I'm so sorry, this is an improv game where one person says to another "I'm so sorry." followed by a statement such as " I lost all of your socks!" the other person must respond back to that and the pair will improv a conversation from that. This game felt a bit repetitive after a while as the group started coming out with the same things as each other and it almost always ended in someones character being killed or one participant not abiding by the yes and rule. I used this as a good teaching moment and I took the time to explain what the yes and rule is and why it's important for improv.

games played

im so sorry

counting to 20 in a circle

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my solo session! This has been something that I have been anticipating since the beginning of my BA year. Leading and taking initiative is something that Im not particularly confident in but I have been really ready for the challenge. Today I had an hour long chat with Ricky following my mentor session on Monday, I ran him through my ideas once again as I had tweaked some things since Monday and he accepted them and said it was a "sound plan". His reassurance was really helpful for me and I loved that he kept reminding me that I was never going to be alone and that Ricky or Steven would assist me if I needed it. To start my session I played a game of anyone who where the participants switch places based off of Ann instruction such as "one places if you're wearing black" This was a really fun activity however I do wish that I had Began with re iterating everyones names in the group. Everything was going smoothly until we had an incident of two participants hitting eachother. This took focus away from my activity and it meant that both Ricky and Steven had to step away to deal with this. I kept going with the session and surprisingly the group stayed engaged and focused on our activity. I then played yes lets which is a movement based improv activity where you go around the circle and someone says "lets jump on a trampoline" and the other participants respond "yes lets" we do this until everyone has had a turn. This was fun however it moved pretty slowly despite my efforts to encourage the group to say the first thing that came out to mind. We then moved on to the bulk of my session which was characterisation, I got the group to picture a REALLY old person and I got them to think about how they might walk, talk, interact with others and I got the people who felt they could take it on to think about their objectives and where their character was going and why. This was really helpful as it meant the group could bounce off of each other and could take character ideas from one another.

I then got the group to take a piece of paper which had a character profile on it and they had to become that character using the task we had just done so I reiterated that they should be mindful of their characters age, their name, their accent. Then we moved onto park bench which initially I think I under explained and the first individuals that I called on to improv a scene were not enthusiastic and kept asking questions about the task. This was of course fine but I did keep pushing for the individuals to just try ut and I could help as they went however in the end two people volunteered to go which I should have maybe asked for in the first place.

other games

freeze and justify

prisioner vs police

why are you late

the session was really rowdy tonight, even Ricky and Steven separately approached me and told me well done for controlling the room as well as I did which I was really thankful for as I felt quite defeated.

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elements and creating scenes based off the element they were given fire, water, air, earth and had to encourage people over to their side via an advert.

woosh

I found that in sessions I tend to be put out pretty near the start, instead of this being embarrassing to me I instead view it as a good way for the group to know its okay to not be "wrong"

stop go

this was fun bit felt a bit dragged and the constant changing of directions made it hard to keep up with.

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This session I had a conversation with Ricky about not leading for the full session time and I requested to just lead some activities. He was happy to oblige as it is a lot for one person to lead a two hour session of 8-12 years olds considering that its normally two peoples jobs. My main game for this session was an adapted version of Giants, Wizards and Goblins. The previous week we gave the Navigators a theme which is the Elements. so I made my game Water, Fire, Air

water > Fire

fire> air

air> water

this game was so much fun and the group were visibly excited to revisit this old game, they asked me if they could sing their intro song to it which I of course said yes to and we played the game for roughly 15 minutes.

my next activity was to get the group into different numbers and to create a still image. for example id shout get into groups of 3. The groups would form and I would call out something like car or tree, candle, mud, boat. The group would then have to answer my question which would be along the lines of "what's the trees magical power" and the group would have to respond and agree with one another. this activity encouraged the basics of improv and included the elements I spoke about previously