Year 4 Pupils Tackle Perseus and Medusa with the Royal Opera House

We were pleased to welcome dancers from the Royal Opera House to the Inspiration Trust Centre for Education last term for two visits, initially to provide all our primary teachers with some CPD and training to utilise with their core text. Then at the end of term, we welcomed all the primary schools in Inspiration Trust to come together and perform their pieces based on the Greek myth of Perseus and Medusa.

To think about ways to engage our pupils with one of our core literature texts, some of our primary staff were given a day of training and development working with the Royal Opera House on Perseus and Medusa. Generating themes, ideas and key vocabulary to use in their lessons, our staff gained deeper insight into the text and covered different strategies to engage students and translate their understanding into a performance incorporating movement and shape.

Taking this learning back into schools helped support teachers' lessons on Perseus and Medusa and provided the foundation for the performances developed throughout the term.

On the day of the performances, all our children were excited and waited patiently for their turn. 250 Year 4 pupils from across our trust arrived and partook in a whole group warm-up led by the amazing Royal Opera House dancers, inspiring our pupils to give their all to their performances and be confident in performing, even in front of all the other schools.

Sophie Macdonald, Director of Primary Curriculum at Inspiration Trust said:

“The dance performances by the children were absolutely wonderful and it must have taken an incredible amount of preparation from staff in schools. It was amazing to see our core literature text, Perseus and Medusa, come to life through dance.”

All schools had their turn to perform and the imagination and movement within their pieces were fantastic. Guided by their teachers, our pupils were able to tell the story of Perseus and Medusa with different scenes acted out, portrayed alongside music and even including some narration to set the scene!

Coming together at the end of the day, everyone involved brought their themes and movements to represent different parts of the story.  Pupils identified traits and characteristics from the literature and created movements to symbolise them. Having so many pupils engaging in the session was wonderful to see. Tremendous thanks to the dancers from the Royal Opera House that lead the sessions providing our pupils inspiration to try their best and to succeed.