Drama Department goes to Milan!

Two weeks ago, Miss Devaux and I were fortunate enough to be given the opportunity to go to Italy to share teaching ideas with studentsat the prestigious Collegio San Carlo School, in the centre of Milan. Staff and students who have been at Hayes for more than five yearswill remember that Mrs Haralambous, an English teacher, used to work at Hayes School. She returned to Milan after her teacher trainingin England, and now works at the school, which has among its alumni Sylvio Berlusconi’s grandson and footballer Paolo Maldini’s son.Opposite the front door is a small chapel where Leonardo Da Vinci’s ‘Last Supper’ is painted. The school is over 1,000 years old and steepedin history.The purpose of our visit was to share the teaching experience and ideas we have in Drama with the staff and students at the school, inorder that they might be able to apply them not only English, but all other subjects as well. We began by giving a seminar to the staffand students on the cultural faculty, who have classes taught in Italian and English. We showed pictures and DVD’s of our school that hadbeen compiled by Mrs Harney. Then Miss Devaux and I taught three one-hour classes each to the equivalent of Year 7, 8 and 9. We ledthem through a number of drama skills that everyone at Hayes would be familiar with such as Still Images and Thought-tracking, thenrelated them to literacy and learning, specifically Romeo & Juliet (Year 9), ‘Daffodils’ by William Wordsworth (Year 8) and ‘Nettles’ by VernonScanlon (Year 7). We were amazed at how quickly the students responded to the stimuli and skills we taught them. The highlight waswhen two students were hot-seated as Romeo then Juliet just after their first meeting at the Ball. All questions and improvised responseswere done in English!!The feedback we got after the classes from the teachers was very positive indeed. They thought that the students were far more engagedthan normal, and want to develop their plan to make all subjects accessible through drama techniques, from now on.We only stayed one full day, but had a wonderful time - apart from the weather, which was atrocious! The school wants to further linkswith Hayes, and will be visiting London next summer, so we hope that they will be able to come and visit and work with us.Thank you to Miss Devaux for her expertise on poetry and literacy, to Mrs Harney for all her hard work in the Media department, to Mr Osborne for permitting the visit and to Mrs Haralambous for organising all parts of our stay so efficiently.

Mr Eden, Teacher of Drama