Poorest children in Coventry set for Christmas treat
They're off to the Royal Opera House in London.
Children in Coventry who are facing a bleak Christmas will go on a free trip to see the ballet in London this month.
A total of 500 children from 20 schools in the city have a ‘once-in-a-lifetime’ chance to see the Nutcracker at the Royal Opera House.
Two-thirds of them are from more deprived areas of Coventry and many will get “very little” for Christmas this year, according to a local teacher.
Rebecca Bollands, Deputy Headteacher at Earlsdon Primary School, said: “A lot of children who are going to get very little this Christmas are going to have this one chance of a lifetime.
“These children are living with very little and particularly now in challenging economic times, these families are going to have nothing for Christmas.
“We know children who, the one present they’ll get will be from the social worker.”
She added: “Every child that’s going just cannot wait. For them it’s just an amazing opportunity.”
Sixteen teachers will accompany the children to the performance on Wednesday, December 14.
Tickets for the subsidised show cost £7.50 per child and have been paid for by the Coventry Children’s Education Partnership (CCEP).
The special trip comes four years after Coventry schools formed a partnership with the Royal Opera House.
Staff at the venue have been travelling to Coventry to give school-teachers training on how to teach dance.
“It’s been amazing, the children have responded so well,” she told the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS).
“Children have said I normally do football but I’ve just suddenly found I can enjoy being creative.
“It’s not really just about the dancing, it’s about the creativity. Especially coming out of Covid.”
Mrs Bollands explained how the lessons had been made as inclusive as possible.
She: “A wheelchair user would use the parts of their body that they are physically able to, to then express themselves through their arms or their head more.
“If a child is deaf then we would have different signals we would use like coloured scarves to indicate changes of time in the music, we’d have a lot more visual things available for them. We’d have someone signing.
“There’s lots of adaptations. If there’s a child with a learning disability, with autism, we would create a separate group with a much quieter, more relaxed performance.”
The project has been so successful it won a Gold Teaching Award out of thousands of entries at the Pearson National Teaching Awards last month.
Jillian Barker, Director of Learning and Participation at the Royal Opera House said: “We are absolutely delighted that so many schoolchildren from across Coventry will be joining us for The Nutcracker this December, stepping into the magical world of snow and Sugar Plum fairies.
“Around half of them have never attended a schools’ matinee before, and two thirds come from schools with a higher-than-average number of pupils receiving free school meals.
“This is part of a rich partnership with Coventry schools, set up in 2019 when we partnered with the Local Cultural Education Partnership (who have helped to subsidised these tickets), Coventry City Council and Coventry City of Culture to address a gap in inclusive dance provision.