Project category: Primary School

Four performers are embracing arms in pairs. They cross each other so their arms form a X, lights shine above them as they smile.

Our new experiential programme working with primary schools to better understand and promote Healthy Relationships using an arts-based approach.

Shifting Point

Run in collaboration with Tender, Shifting Point is delivered as weekly sessions across 6-weeks or as a week’s intensive for Year 5 students. Closely linked to the PSHE curriculum it is designed to help children:

  • communicate and collaborate with their peers
  • better able to express positive and negative emotions that affect their collaborative work
  • listen and respond with empathy to different perspectives
  • learn new skills that stretch the boundaries of what they believe they can achieve
  • understand the components of healthy and unhealthy relationships, and where to access support.

Teachers and school staff:

  • Become more skilled and resourced for Healthy Relationship education
  • Feel more confident using arts-based approaches to teach Healthy Relationships.

Made possible with funding through the Paul Hamlyn Foundation.

‘Creating an environment where the children feel safe and comfortable is paramount to children participation and their opening up, and that is exactly what happened.’

Class Teacher

Hands are pressed, palm to palm, with a perspex screen between them. There are reflections, lights spots and scratches covering the surface.
Four performers are embracing arms in pairs. They cross each other so their arms form a X, lights shine above them as they smile.
Young girl suspended from harness, floating on her back above the floor.

A brilliantly exciting new way of teaching physics to KS2 children through aerial flying!

Flying into Physics

Using exciting and creative aerial techniques to explore physical forces, Flying into Physics makes science approachable and accessible for a wide range of KS2 learners, including those who struggle with more traditional methods, to feel inspired and enjoy learning science and engineering.

This programme is offered free to primary schools in the London Boroughs of: Islington, Camden, Barnet, Brent, Ealing, and Hammersmith & Fulham.

The programme is available in 2 versions:

  • Demonstration model: a 2 hour session where the principles of physics are demonstrated by aerial artists with some participation from the students. 
  • Practical model: pupils will get to actively take part across 3 aerial sessions applying physical aerial movement to learn physics.

What do you get for FREE? 

  • Teacher CPD session with Science Specialist 
  • Teachers Aerial session*
  • Flying into Physics sessions for young people focussing on exploring flying, exploring forces at play & exploring pulleys, pulley systems & levers*

*please note the details of the offer are dependent on the model chosen for delivery 

If you’re interested and would like to receive further information please contact Søren Nielsen (Executive Director & Project Lead) on soren@scarabeus.co.uk 

This programme is offered free thanks to the generous support of John Lyon’s Charity, The Portal Trust, The Armourers and Brasiers’ Gauntlet Trust, Garfield Weston Foundation, The Ogden Trust, The Vintners Foundation and Manly Trust. Please contact us at the email address below to see if your school is eligible.

Image by Gigi Giannella, video by Chloë Plumb.

Providing children an introduction to the art of aerial theatre.

Airborne

A 10 week programme, Airborne aims to increase children’s physical literacy, building their inner trust and self-belief through improving their confidence and competence.

Children feel better able to express themselves through non-competitive movement and working together as a team. They learn to make and relate to new friends, and feel more connected within the school environment. By having fun, pleasure and enjoyment in an activity that promotes positive challenges, children acquire the motivation and determination to overcome mental and physical obstacles and fears.

Made possible with funding from the John Lyon’s Charity.

“The way that you have built relationships with the children has been a crucial factor in the success and calmness within the sessions. I have been very impressed with the increasingly serious way the children approach the learning that they are doing with you. It doesn’t feel like you are delivering an activity, it does feel like you are delivering life skills that the children will now own.” Headteacher, All Saints School N20

Our latest collaboration with Keys Meadow Primary School, My Mind Is Like the Sky takes the audience on an emotional journey from a child’s perspective.

My Mind Is Like The Sky

Our latest collaboration with Keys Meadow Primary School: My Mind Is Like the Sky

Exploring, experimenting and feeling able to talk openly about emotions is essential for the wellbeing of everyone! Our work enables children, young people and adults to experience the healing nature of aerial dance theatre.

My mind is like the sky takes the audience on an emotional journey from a child’s perspective.
Inspired by Bronwen Ballard’s mindfulness book Your mind is like the sky, the performance explores both positive and negative emotions, illustrating how they affect us, and offering insights into navigating challenging and negative feelings.

The performance marked the culmination of our pilot project Shifting Point, developed in close collaboration with three primary schools in the country, to design an innovative programme on healthy relationships. This experiential, arts-based learning programme, complements the schools’ PSHE curriculum and is funded by the Paul Hamlyn Foundation.

Group of school children in their wolf costumes with pointy ears and masks.

A collaboration between Keys Meadow Primary School & Scarabeus Aerial Theatre.

A Child Of Stories

Inspired by Oliver Jeffers and Sam Winston’s A Child of Books and Anthony Browne’s The Tunnel, together with traditional stories from the cultures of the children at Keys Meadow Primary School. A Child of Stories invites you to join brother and sister Maya and Kwame on an unexpected journey which requires all of their courage and bravery.

Bored because they have not been at school for months, whilst the world is stricken by a pandemic, Maya and Kwame bicker and bicker. Mum and Dad send them out to play. Little do they know that Kwame will get lost in a dark tunnel whilst chasing a ball, which will lead him to be captured and imprisoned in a suspended cage, frozen by fear and nearly eaten by fierce wolves. Maya, helped by her Auntie, who happens to be a very smart witch, will have to summon all her courage to find Kwame in the scary forest full of noises and perils. They will fight the bad wolves together with the caring witches and wizards who come to their rescue. Once safely back at home, Maya and Kwame have learned to rejoice in each other’s company. But are they really safe…

Created with Keys Meadow Year 5 Eagles & Owls pupils, who took leading roles in performing, filming and marketing this new short film. Each group has been working with professional artists, including circus performers/directors, filmmakers, costume designers and arts marketing experts.

Supported using public funding Arts Council England.

Check out Artistic Director Daniela Essart’s Case Study of the project Family Arts Campaign.

Image by Daniela Essart, video by Lucy Whitehead and Chloë Plumb.

Poster of If Not Now, Then When? showing silhouettes of people in a boat with bird flying above, drawn by students involved in project.

If not now then when? was an exciting site-specific promenade show inspired by Quentin Blake’s book ‘A Sailing Boat in the Sky’ and The United Nations Convention on the ‘Rights of the Child’.

If not now then when?

If not now then when? was an exciting site-specific promenade show inspired by Quentin Blake’s book ‘A Sailing Boat in the Sky’ and The United Nations Convention on the ‘Rights of the Child’. 

Working with Keys Meadow Primary School’s Year 5 children we explored themes of child labour, warfare, poverty and climate change with a life sized boat travelling around the school, ‘saving’ children from scene-to-scene. The show culminated with an aerial performance in the hall with children suspended above the ground in cocoons – in a call to action for the rights of all children! 

Supported by using public funds from Arts Council England.

Video by Chloë Plumb.

Large group of children dressed in gold raps with tartan plastic carriers

A 3-month visual theatre performance  project, inspired by the book ‘La Mariposa’ by Francisco Jimenez’, working with Keys Meadow Primary Schools’ Year 5 & 6 Pupils.

BE-LONGING

A 3-month visual theatre performance  project, inspired by the book ‘La Mariposa’ by Francisco Jimenez’, working with Keys Meadow Primary Schools’ Year 5 & 6 Pupils. 

Scarabeus worked with the pupils to explore team-building and trust, movement and staging, physical theatre and aerial skills; as well as visual art, costume and set design. 

The project culminated in a performance telling the story of a young migrant who lives in a refugee camp and speaks little English; feeling different and facing isolation at school, our protagonist takes comfort in oversving a caterpillar housed in a jar near his desk that slowly transforms into a butterfly. 

Working with the school, the grounds were transformed into large-scale sets; a refugee camp, a physical border crossing, a factory assembly line and the final scene of suspended aerial cocoons where a number of butterflies hatch and take flight. 

Supported by using public funds from Arts Council England.

Images by Daniela Essart, video by Chloë Plumb.

Children laying on floor in a circle with heads together, faces covered with yellow clothes, covered in dappled sunlight.

Exodus (KS2) Project brought together groups of migrant and non-migrant communities to explore and aid communication between communities, improve understanding and challenge negative perceptions around refugee arrivals.

Exodus KS2

Using images, objects and physical theatre games as a starting point we were able to tell the stories of these communities.

Pupils participating in the project developed a variety of physical and creative skills through the application of yoga, aerial harness and cocoon and physical theatre.

Exodus was made possible with the support from Awards for All, Swan Mountain Trust, John Lyons Charity and Stavros Niarchos Foundation.

For more information on the Exodus project please see Secondary School Projects.

Images by Mark Morreau and Chloë Plumb, video by Chloë Plumb.

“It was really nice listening to other people’s stories.”

Participant

Whos Afraid of the Dark poster drawn by students from the project

A collaborative performance project between Scarabeus Aerial Theatre, Writer Nicky Singer and Grafton Primary School, performed in Queens Wood. 

Who’s Afraid of the Dark

Magnes and Mabel are twins. Their Mother is dangerously ill. Only one thing can save her – five flowers from the Golden Glade. But the Golden Glade is on the far side of the forest. Past a giant spider, past hungry wolves, past the screaming BabaYaga. Will the twins have the courage for the task? 

62 pupils participated in aerial dance, drama, creative writing and physical explorations of the woods to unlock a world of magic and mystery.

Video by Chloë Plumb.

A project with Samuel Rhodes Primary SEN pupils and their parents, bringing the school community together to celebrate how different cultures contribute to everyday life in school.

To the love of food

 As part of the project pupils & parents participated in yoga, dance, storytelling, physical theatre and cooking workshops. The project culminated in a multi-cultural banquet and celebration of arts activities connected with food. 

‘To the love of food’ was supported by an Award for ALL through the Big Lottery Fund. 

“My daughter made enormous progress through this project. I was able to share with other families our favourite recipes – in my culture sharing food is a way of socialising.”