"A London theatre company is providing an alternative to the teacher crisis" by Martin Whittaker
At St Andrew's Primary school in the London borough of Lambeth, a supply teacher is taking year 4, and the children are acting like a bunch of wild animals. It's an all too common scenario- except that this teacher is encouraging the children to be beastly. To background music with a jungle beat, the children are acting out how animals move - how giraffes gallop, how elephants stomp, how tigers stalk their prey. They sit in circles, eyes closed, trying to imagine what sounds they would hear if they were in the jungle. Then come more games and role-playing, including a clapping game called the minister's cat, in which the child has to think of a word beginning with "s". They are asked to describe their wild animals and make up poems. The day ends with them making animal masks using paper plates.
