Earlier this month, we were delighted to be joined by four fantastic work experience students from Cheney School, Blessed George Napier and Icknield Community College. Here’s what they got up to…
I have really enjoyed my work experience week at The North Wall. At the start of the week, the work was focused on understanding the roles of everyone in the business, asking lots of questions and getting an insight into what a further education into theatre could look like that isn’t performing. It also helps to understand the intentions of the charity and how The North Wall runs on a day-to-day basis.
On Wednesday evening, I helped to work in front of house for a performance in the theatre. I learnt about the importance of ushers in fire safety, and also making sure guests feel comfortable and welcome at The North Wall. I also worked scanning people’s tickets as they entered, and overall, the show went very well.
Our main task of the week was to pitch a project to the team from the options of: a curating project, a participation project and a community producer project. I decided to choose the participation project, which was to design and plan a workshop on the theme of “Transition” for children going into year 7, using the stimulus “The Changing Room” by Chris Bush. It was not only a creative project but we also had to work out the logistics and budgeting of the project. As I was working on my project, I learnt how to design this workshop, and had to really focus on small details, such as: was my workshop appropriate for the age range, is the timeline and plan realistic, how could I link the workshop to the play and the theme of transition. My final idea was a workshop focused around aiming to improve the children’s social and teamwork skills to be more comfortable talking to peers, teachers and making new friends at secondary school, as well as understanding that other people feel anxious and worried too and they will be alright. I presented this through a 2.5 hour performing arts workshop based on using scenes and a song from the play to create a collaborative and sociable atmosphere, that could be applied to the children’s lives at school, as well as including a Drama Resource Booklet, with individual drama related tasks on the theme of transitioning into secondary school. I included a roleplay activity, where the child can embody someone facing an issue related to friendship or bullying at their new school, and answer questions about how they might feel and respond to the situation. Another activity in the booklet was focusing on how drama skills can help them to be a friendly person, such as having a positive body language (head up, smiling, making eye contact with peers) and thinking of what they might talk about to try and make friends.
Overall, my week at The North Wall has given me a really important insight into how a theatre and an arts-based charity can run, and the important roles of everyone in the business and how they work together to form a successful and collaborative team. – Katie
Before starting work experience at The North Wall, I didn’t really know what to expect to be doing but I was excited to be there and see the theatre. When I arrived, everyone at the centre were very welcoming and friendly, especially the participation manager Abie Walton, and I worked with a lovely group of 3 other candidates. During the week, I learnt a lot about different aspects of running an arts centre/theatre through attending meetings with people in different departments such as the director, general manager, technician, front of house and participation.
My favourite part of the week was when I got to be an usher and help on FOH for a show in the theatre because it was a great way to improve my communication skills and work with the staff. Something I found challenging with this was answering questions from the public such as where things were, however I overcame this just by asking for support from the North wall staff who were very helpful.
In the last few days of my experience, I got to work on an individual project where we had a choice of 3 projects to choose from. I ended up deciding to do a community producer project, where I designed community events to take place alongside the Oxford Light Festival. This was very interesting to work on and gave me a chance to present my ideas. One of the challenges I had with this was working out the logistics of things such as the budget and organizing the events. I received some help from Abie with this who was very supportive and explained things clearly. With this, I learnt about things such as commission, money splits and venue hire. I feel like this has developed my skills and knowledge on how to organize events.
Working in the arts, I realised that I prefer doing things in collaboration with other people to obtain lots of different ideas.
I strongly think there is something for everyone to learn about doing this placement if it’s learning about projects, finance, community service or simply loving theatre and being creative. – Eloise
During my week at The North Wall I got to get a closer look at the inner workings of how the arts centre is run. I learned about many different roles that are necessary for a place like this to run, including technician, director, front of house staff and many more. Going into the week I wasn’t quite sure what to expect due to the varied nature of what they do here, however, it’s safe to say that I came out of it extremely satisfied with my experience. My favourite part of the week was definitely working as an usher for the show on Wednesday night, everyone was extremely polite, patient and respectful, and I went home extremely happy that I got to help so many people. One thing that I hoped this experience would bring me was more confidence in myself and my abilities, along with an improvement in social skills, and that hope was justified, as I now feel like I can better work with others because of my time here. While I was doing my work experience at the arts centre, I had to work on a project and present it at the end of the week. Doing so could be somewhat challenging and stressful at times, however, as I look back on working on the project, it was fun to come up with the ideas, research how to make budgets and solve any problems that came up. Overall the experience was fun, enlightening and really enjoyable. – Theo
Coming into my experience at The North Wall I expected to be attending meetings, offering ideas and learning new skills. My expectations were exceeded as I was given a real taste of the creative, enriching work that takes place here. I learned many new skills about working in theatre, from marketing to tech to front of house. This was refreshing as I’ve only ever seen the performance side of things. We were each given a project of our choice which we spent the majority of our time working on and then presented at the end of the week. I chose to work on curating an exhibition based on nostalgia, plan the logistics of the event and make a 3D model of the show. I found this really fun as I’m really interested in art and I love the artists that I chose. I struggled to budget the event as I’d never done anything like this before but the team were incredibly eager and helpful when it came to answering questions. We also worked front of house on the Wednesday evening which was busy and chaotic but really fun! I was helping behind the bar and really enjoyed talking to customers and being as helpful as I could. At first it was overwhelming but, once again, The North Wall staff were exceedingly patient in teaching me the basics of the job. Over all, the experience was really educational, helpful and super fun! Working here this week has reminded me that there are loads of creative career paths I can follow; whether that be applied theatre, exhibition work or event producing. I’ve loved every second of this experience and have made really good friends who share my passion for art and I am thankful for the skills I have learned here and I hope to apply them to my future career. – Iris
