Crew

Calling all Actors, Musicians and Artists!

This summer CREW are launching their first summer camps for children aged 8-12 KS2.  These fun filled summer camps will give children the chance to put on a performance of their life whilst having fun and building confidence as actors, musicians and artists.  It is taking more organising than we realise, as we want to ensure that everything is in place so that the camps run smoothly and the children and parents get the most out of them.

The summer workshops will be held at St Marks Primary School Lower Boston Road Ealing W7 and will run from 26/7-27/8 10-4 (9-4  for early birds). Holding the workshops at St Marks ensures us that the venue is appropriate for children and that health and safety issues with regards to the building have been properly addressed.

There will be three main activities Acting, Artist (Prop and Costume design) and Music, our aim is to get children to understand how a production is put together be it TV or stage and that for a good production it requires the involvement and commit of all.  Through the process of communication, collaboration and understanding using techniques from our Express Yourself Workshop, the children who will be either actors, musicians or artists will work in their three groups, and will learn the importance of working together, build confidence and gain skills for life.

We are finalising the details, and will have everything in place after the school half term.

Watch this space!

Enjoy your half -term and lets hope the sun shines!

Ros

We have just launched our Tudor Turmoil workshop for KS1 and KS2.

Tudor Turmoil is an exploratory tour of Tudor times – what was life like for the rich and poor?  Watch your children dress up and re-enact the past to get a hands on experience of Tudor times.

Lets not forget Henry VIII and his unfortunate wives with this interactive and slightly gory learning experience to remember who was divorced, behaeaded, died and divorced, beheaded  and survived!

This workshop covers all aspects of the QCA but what about the new IPC (International Primary Curriculum)?  Well, we recently were able to adapt the Tudor workshop for one of our schools to link in and support their chosen IPC topic of castles; by letting Eric the ‘executioner’ reveal all about the secret life in the Tower of London.

Find out more…

To find out more about our Tudor Turmoil workshop or any of our KS1 and KS2 History primary school workshops please call Ros in the office on 0845 260 4414 or email info@crew.uk.net  for details and bookings.

This January CREW has launched our new Super Science Game Show, KS1 and KS2!

‘Super Science’ is a BIG show for BIG Audiences; perfect for launching your schools Science Week in March; or bringing the National Science week to a close with a BIG BANG.

With Big Shows for big audiences, ‘Super Science’, allows you to give whole Year groups or whole Key Stages the CREW experience, all in one go.

We are very excited about this show as it allows teachers and teams the flexibility to choose their own questions and challenges from the whole range of KS1 and KS2 Science Curriculum.

From sounds to materials, electricity to light, the human body to forces, your children can explore the earth, sun and moon; in this whirlwind tour of KS1 and KS2 science.

Find out more…

To find out more about our Super Science game show or any of our KS1 and KS2 Science primary school workshops please call Ros in the office on 0845 260 4414 for details and booking.

This October CREW launched some new and exciting black history school workshops; which we piloted during black history month.

The workshops were met with excellent feedback and excitement all round!

The workshops on offer are for KS1 and KS2. For key stage 1 we have the all new ‘Mary Seacole workshop’ which follows our heroine Mary as she helps people with cholera in Panama, heals people with yellow fever in Jamaica and then goes to help the soldiers in the Crimean war. As usual all children have a role to play and we follow Mary as she faces hardship and adversity while trying to help the soldiers in the front line.

For key stage 1 and 2 there is the amazing game show called Origins. This workshop explores the ‘Origins’ of black history. Children explore the beginnings of slavery and migration and explore achievement and invention. The children are split into teams and win points on how much they know and are challenged to life on a slave ship!

Our other great workshop for key stage 2 is WW2 Commonwealth Contributions. This workshop is based on our very popular WW2 workshop but it is enhanced to go into ‘How the war was actually won!’ and to include the commonwealth contributions of African American GI’s and West Indian RAF. Children are exposed to the reality of WW2 and how those contributions from the U.S, India and Africa really helped to save our bacon!

See our black history school workshops brochure page.

Special offer on Black History Workshops…

We at CREW are very excited about these three new workshops and so we are delighted to offer a Special half price deal on Mary Seacole, Origins and Common Wealth Contributions. If you book any of the above mentioned shows for a group of 60 children you will only have to pay for 30!

Call Ros in the office on 0845 260 4414 and book now.

Our team of professional presenters are now applying their skills in a new direction – to the dynamic world of children’s parties.

With a huge range of party entertainers available right across London and the South West, customers will get exactly the entertainer they desire.

CREW Parties guarantee high quality presenters who can deliver these exciting fun-filled party experiences in a skilled and structured manner, delighting and inspiring your child and guests.

Party formats can range from:

Explosive game show experiences, such as the Murder Mystery Disco or the Brain Boxing Show to the creative madness of our ‘Enchanted Academy’ Fairy school and our Amazing ‘Superhero School’.

Children can also enjoy a huge range of party characters, with balloon tricks and magic up their sleeves; from pirates to princesses, from wizards to superheroes, we can find the character to bring your child’s dreams to life.

Find out more about CREW children’s parties.

It has been full steam ahead at Crew HQ lately and I am very pleased to announce a plethora of exciting new primary school workshops, shows and happenings!

Primary School Workshops

On the primary school workshop front this school year will see the launch of ‘Tudor Turmoil’, a gruesome educational journey into the life and times of Henry VIII. Following the success of our first foundation years project ‘Cornelius Goes To Market’ (Numeracy) our lovable puppet will be taking two more outings this term; ‘Cornelius Goes To The Seaside’ (literacy) and ‘Cornelius Goes To School’ (PHSE).

We have also expanded our ‘Express Yourself’ primary school workshop, dealing with confidence, communication and collaboration, and our maths workshop to now range for all year groups.

October will bring black history month and with it our new ‘Black History Gameshow’ highlighting the invaluable contributions from black people throughout the ages.

Find out more about primary school workshops from CREW.

CREW Parties

If that wasn’t enough to keep us out of the pub over the summer break, we’ve also launched Crew Parties! We’ve taken the step to boldly go were no educational profesional in their right mind should go! Out of a world where control and discipline are vaguely achievable and into one where the children are encouraged to consume huge quantities of sugar and run around like maniacs! Mistake or not birthday parties with an educational twist are now available.

Schools have closed, the year is done and summer is upon us along with swine flu! But we are still busy working here at CREW, we have a few weeks to go before we can sit on the beach and sip that champagne!

At the moment we are all working very hard on our NEW shows for September 2009. We are very excited about Tudors, a show for Year 3, led by the Eric the executioner. At the moment we are all helping Eric with all the work that needs to be done. We are sourcing props and costume and finalising the script.

Another show we are currently working on is a Black History game show, this workshop will cover black history in England and across the world. We will be ready to pilot the show in September and will definitely have it available for Black History Month in October. We are also expanding our show Express Yourself so that there will be versions for reception, Key Stages 1 and 2. We are also creating more with our popular puppet Cornelius Crew, Cornelius was piloted at West Acton Primary school and has proved to be really popular and a great workshop which provides a foundation in numeracy for reception and Year 1. Which is why Cornelius is now branching out into Literacy and he is going to the seaside too!

So it’s busy, busy in the office. Along with all the new shows and our wonderful puppet we are also working with MENCAP again, this year saw us working with their travel trainers and conexions. We created two shows for MENCAP and they have proved to be rewarding and an incredible learning curve. We are taking some more travel trainers through the CREW training programme.We are also gearing up to go back up to the Forest and are currently preparing training programmes and team building days for the Forest Holiday staff.

That all said there is a project we are currently working on that is incredibly exciting and extremly important. We at CREW have had many discussions and debates regarding the situation surrounding knife crime. We are all saddened and frustrated by the fact that violence and knives have entered schools and disrupting the youth in this country. So CREW have decided to try and help! We believe many carry knivs in this country for protection as they have never been taught how to protect themselves without a weapon! We have currently teamed up with a self defence expert and are working on a programme which will cover self-defence and confidence building, drama based workshops which will also provide a platform for these children to speak out!! WATCH THIS SPACE!

The CREW Training team were asked by the Science Museum (sciencemuseum .org.uk) to help their outreach team, fine-tune their presentation skills, for their exciting new electricity game show. CREW brought on board experience from our ‘Bright Sparks’ Electricity workshop for KS1 And KS2, and combined this with our presentation skills training. This was, together with the knowledge and resources of the Science Museum team; to help target their ‘Danger High Voltage’ show, to specifically engage a KS3 audience. The challenge was for the two teams to create a show that was exciting enough to appeal to the passions of the teenage audience, without compromising the educational validity of the experience. The ‘DHV’ show is an exciting, educational, game show, that introduces/ reinforces the KS3 electricity curriculum to (approx) 200 children per show. Throughout the project it became clear that the age and size of the KS3 audiences demanded a level of presentation that artfully combined exciting interaction techniques with defined control skills. I am very pleased to say that the teams worked extremely hard to ensure that this show has become a great example of KS3 interactive science. A big thank you to the SM team: Nathaniel, Damien, Danny, Tracey, Deanne, Jane, and Jammie, not forgetting, Shana and Richard (the happy couple).

Adam Senior, MD

A big, thank you to Briony Creasey of ECAS (Ealing Curriculum Advisory Service); for organising, ‘The Ealing Enquiry’ project, throughout March. Due to Briony’s coordination and recommendation through ECAS, we were able to offer Ealing schools ½ price (and in some cases) free science workshops. The team presented our ‘Clued-up or Clueless’ science murder mystery workshops to, approx 2000, KS2 primary school children throughout the borough. These crime busting, finger printing, bloodstained workshops acted as the catalyst to a 2 week science project, supported by our teacher’s packs, that offered the upper KS2 children the chance to get some real ‘hands on’ science investigation experience. With all the games and challenges designed to promote the ‘applied’ use of ‘transition’ level science investigation skills, this project really ‘cracked the case’!
Adam Senior, M.D.

Spring term saw the development of our ‘Suitcase Stories’ for Foundation Years children. I was particularly grateful for the inspirations I received from Kate Livingstone (Foundation Stage Coordinator at West Acton Primary) in order to develop ‘Cornelius goes to Market’. Cornelius and I are really looking forward to using story, song, music and rhyme to make numeracy accessible for Nursery and Reception children. The team have been looking for a long time, for some way to bring CREW resources to the younger years, in a format that can engage, whilst not over exciting or overwhelming them and I think we have finally cracked it! Literacy next, can’t wait!

Bala McAlinn, Schools Manager