Licketyspit is widely recognised as a centre of excellence for child-centred theatre and drama-led play, which we call Storyplay. In this part of the website, you can find out about the impact of our work for children, families, communities and schools.

Evaluation and monitoring is integral to our practice, and we work hard to gather feedback, carry out impact analysis, and incorporate this into our work. This includes creating consultation opportunities with participating children, families and teachers, as well as building in debrief and evaluation sessions with all of our actor-pedagogues.

Licketyspit’s work has received national support and recognition such as through the Scottish Government’s Early Intervention Fund (LicketyLeap), Scottish Attainment Challenge (Storyplay Schools) and New Scots Integration Strategy (Porridge & Play Hubs).

Our key outcomes are summarised below.

Attainment

Storyplay is a highly effective creative toolkit and methodology that can be applied to any of the 8 curriculum areas as an effective pedagogical method. Licketyspit has successfully used Storyplay (our drama-led play approach) to enhance literacy, vocabulary, storytelling, confidence, social skills, problem solving, emotional literacy and resilience.

Licketyspit has a unique theatre in residence project called Storyplay Schools – where Licketyspit forms a long-lasting relationship with the school and school community and supports their work to address the poverty associated attainment gap.

Successful Learners

Licketyspit’s drama-led approach supports various different ways of learning, particularly for children who are physical, visual or social learners. This varied learning environment gives children the opportunity to achieve through different pedagogical methods. The variety of play methods used by Licketyspit i.e. imaginative play, games, songs, rhymes, can help support the learning styles described below.

Teacher-led evaluation consistently shows improvements or marked improvements in use & knowledge of language, confidence, social skills and emotional literacy, for pupils in the greatest need who participate in Licketyspit’s activities.

“I was so shocked this child struggles with reading/writing. He drew a pic and asked how to write 5 sentences, copied them and read them to the whole class” P5 Teacher

Addressing ACES

Many of the children Licketyspit works with have experienced ACEs. By supporting the development of emotional literacy and a growth mindset, Licketyspit sessions support participants to express their emotions freely and securely, enabling them to break out of restrictive patterns of behaviour in a safe, relaxed play environment, where everyone is equal and no one is judged.

Licketyspit is highly skilled at engaging with children with low self-esteem and a range of additional support needs. Our rights based approach, using the playcards, enables us to create accelerated relationships with children, who quickly develop their understanding, trust and confidence that everyone will always be seen, heard and valued by us. This means that children who have experienced ACEs respond very positively to participating in our projects. Children frequently express themselves and engage in ways their teachers and parents/carers have never seen before, growing in confidence and emotional literacy, and improving their social skills, during and after working with Licketyspit. Licketyspit actor-pedagogues are specially trained to support children to achieve their full potential, breaking through barriers which hold them back from participating fully in nursery/school life. We know from experience that every child has a rich imagination and a generous spirit wants to join us in play with their peers.

“I am so delighted to see that B engaged in a session like this, and has taken it back into the classroom. If you were to look at adverse childhood experiences she has experienced them all. I’m excited to see where this collaboration goes for her.” Deputy Head, Storyplay Schools

Additional Support Needs

Licketyspit uses drama as an inclusive means of communication. Our actor-pedagogues are trained to engage with children who find it difficult to comfortably express themselves, whether because of a disability or social and emotional factors, understanding that every child is different and will need a different level of support to access Licketyspit’s work on a level they are comfortable with.

Our work is known for being verbally and physically rich, employing a range of multi-sensory practices which are inclusive and accessible to everyone. We look children in the eye with the knowledge that they can and will want to play with us, and our audiences engage, participate and interpret the experience at whatever level they are able to. Licketyspit has a strong and successful track record working with children with additional support needs.

                                                                                                      Case Study

In one of our Storyplay Schools, there was a Primary 5 boy who had global developmental delay, struggled with basic literacy, and had become very disheartened by school, often feeling like he wasn’t as good as the others in his class.

He quickly transformed when he began playing with Licketyspit; there was a visible relaxation in his body language and a huge smile was painted across his face. By the end of the session, he was talking and leading in the games, and was delighted at his own ability to make his class laugh and be fully involved in the same game all together. He realised he was just as good as everyone else in the circle.

After the play session, we asked all of the pupils to draw a picture of their favourite part of the session. He raced back into class and began drawing a picture of a granny character he had created in one of the games. Next, he asked his teacher to write out details about the granny (‘she wore a huge, old smelly cardigan’, ‘she was evil’ and more). He then copied the sentences into his own handwriting and felt empowered enough to stand up in front of his whole class and read it, out loud, to them all.

English as an Additional Language

Licketyspit’s work is known for being verbally and physically rich, employing a range of multi-sensory practices which are inclusive and accessible to everyone. We work on the assumption that language is not a barrier and our audiences and participants engage, access and interpret the experience at whatever level they are able to, regardless of their level of understanding of English.

Licketyspit has a strong and successful track record working with children and adults with English as an Additional Language (EAL) as well as with children with additional support needs (ASN). In our Porridge & Play sessions in communities and schools, the use of movement and rhythm, repeated rhymes and actions and the enthusiastic inclusion of all, allows families with little English to enjoy the songs, rhymes and games, and many have used these social play sessions to improve their English and learn new words. Porridge & Play also includes several songs in Scots!

In 2018 we started working in partnership with Scottish Refugee Council and in 2022 we developed the AllScot Playcards as part of our New Scots Integration Project, where participants shared games and songs from their homelands.

Emotional Literacy

“Many of the children within Glasgow’s areas of high deprivation require support with emotional literacy. Licketyspit has the ability to significantly address this issue through drama using highly skilled staff. ” Child Development Team Leader, LicketyLeap

Licketyspit’s drama-led imaginary play, storytelling, songs and rhymes provide an alternative learning style to traditional educational models. Our non-judgemental, inclusive and supportive approach, alongside our repertoire of games, which have no ‘winners’ or ‘losers’, unlocks children’s capacity to learn and grow in our drama-led activities.

Our projects value the process over the end product or performance, a process in which no answer is wrong and every idea is of equal value. Our work also provides regular opportunities for reflection and evaluation, by and with children, promoting self-awareness and self-confidence, which supports the development of emotional literacy and a ‘growth mindset’.

Teachers evaluate the impact of Licketyspit’s work on emotional literacy as one of our key areas of evaluation (alongside confidence, social skills and use of knowledge and language). Our work has been proven to have a significant and consistent positive impact on emotional literacy in evaluated children.

Case Study

In one of our Storyplay Schools, we worked with 9 year-old B. We had worked with B’s class the previous term, but B was a new face. The Primary 5 class teacher told Licketyspit that B was a pupil at the school (and had been since Primary 1) but was working on a reduced time table of two morning per week as anything in excess of that was too overwhelming for her.

B had never been allowed to participate in any outside activity before, but the class teacher, alongside the school’s headteacher, decided that they would try B working with Licketyspit.

B settled straight into the session and was fully participating in all of the games. Her class members were open and inclusive, and this let B play freely and become her best creative self. B had to leave school after the session was finished as her half day was complete, but when she returned to school the next week, the first thing she wanted to do was create her Granny character, from the LicketyPlay session. The games were a way into creative writing for B, who didn’t even stop to think about what she was doing – all she wanted to do was play more with the idea she had come up with the week before.

“B has never been able to work in a group before, today was the first time she has been able to. There were lots more ideas [than went onto the page.]  I couldn’t believe it, thank you so much.” Class Teacher

Community Integration

Storyplay sessions consistently attract and become home to diverse groups of families. Our approach carefully and intentionally welcomes all and supports people of different backgrounds, languages, economic circumstances, abilities and needs to play well together and become friends. in  In 2022, Licketyspit was funded as part of the New Scots Refugee Integration Strategy to set up three new Porridge & Play Hubs in areas of Glasgow we weren’t currently working in, which had big populations of New Scots. We have also worked with the Scottish Refugee Council since 2018 and all of the schools where we have delivered family Storyplay sessions have diverse cohorts, with headteachers recognising the impact of this work on class cohesion and relationship building between parents and carers.