The CRF were approached by the trustees of the Saracens Multi Academy Trust for funding for a drama project for the new Saracens High School.
It is in a pretty challenging area of North London, the Grahame Part Estate in Colindale. Many of the initial cohort of children, all in year 7, are from refugee backgrounds and English is not a language spoken at home. Difficulties in both home and school lives are causing some of the children to experience anxiety and anger, emotions they are unable to adequately express and which is leading to self-harm in some cases. Additionally, the area has a prominence of gang culture and the children need support in recognising the real dangers of peer pressure outside.
The school wanted to provide a safe platform within the school to address these huge issues – they were proposing a performance Poetry intervention with the Poetry society where 15 of the most vulnerable children will work with a trained spoken word poet for 6 one hour weekly sessions enabling the children to express themselves through the spoken word and rhythm.
The second element was to allow the Chickenshed theatre group to bring their much-admired ‘crime of the century’ performance to the school for 60 students (the whole year group) followed by 6 x 1 hour workshops for 15 students as a follow up. Once again, these would need to be supported and supervised by a Learning Support Assistant and there were expenses to factor in to Chickenshed’s cost.
There was no budget for Drama within the school at that time and will not be until the new buildings are ready and all the year groups are in attendance. So the CRF stepped in to help finance the project.
It is an inspirational project –it is already making a great difference to disadvantaged kids lives – through Rugby’s values and involvement.
Saracens launched the new high school in September 2018 – this piece in the Telegraph was a good summary of the background
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/rugby-union/2018/09/07/exclusive-inside-saracens-high-school-bringing-rugby-culture
www.saracenshigh.org
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