TEAM Education

Go Tell the Bees Learning Hive

At the heart of TEAM Pembrokeshire’s project Go Tell the Bees is the hope that by doing we can learn from each other, we can build confidence and skills and that we can experience through all of the senses.

We have created a hive of information, knowledge, activity and inspiration so that young people can use this space as a springboard for learning. Browse resources by Key Stage, Areas of Learning, or the Simple Act they relate to, plus more information on our Creative Practitioners and Partners.

Phil Okwedy - Storytelling tasks

If we really want to understand our place in nature, we need to stop and take a breath. Hear the birds, the trees, watch the flowers bloom and listen to the sea with the latest activities as part of Go Tell the Bees. Storyteller Phil Okwedy takes you through a series of five stories, each with their own activities for you to complete at home.

Explore the power of the imagination and of story and remember – it only takes a little imagination to help change the world.

The content of story two contains themes that some may find upsetting. It may be a good idea for parents, guardians or teachers to watch this section first before sharing with their children or pupils in order that they may be prepared for any questions that may arise as a result of this story.

The Radicalisation of Bradley Manning

Tim Price’s The Radicalisation of Bradley Manning was first performed in schools across Wales, in April 2012. It tells the story of the 25-year-old US soldier accused of releasing 250,000 secret embassy cables and military logs from the Iraq and Afghan wars. How did he go from being a teenager in West Wales, to this?

Here, you can watch interviews with director John E McGrath, writer Tim Price, designer Chloe Lamford and actors Matthew Aubrey and Gwawr Loader. 

Further resources

To help study The Radicalisation of Bradley Manning, we think it’s important that teachers and students talk about Trans identity and awareness. In real life, Bradley Manning is Chelsea Manning. When we refer to Bradley Manning, we’re referring to the character in the play. To enrich your understanding of the play, and gender identity, we’ve created the following resources with the help of Trans Consultant, Kay R. Dennis and Theatre Director, Facilitator and Writer, Nerida Bradley.

Read Responsibly teaching The Radicalisation of Bradley Manning for tips to use in and outside of the classroom. Click here for more information, resources and support.

Mametz

Further resources
Here, you can watch interviews with assistant director Gethin Evans, production manager David Evans and actors Rhodri Meilir and Nicola Reynolds.

Mametz by Owen Sheers was a large-scale, site-specific production performed in an ancient woodland near Usk, Monmouthshire, in June 2014. The production gave audiences a vivid glimpse into life – and death – in the trenches and battlefields of the Somme.

Inspired by Welsh writer Sheers’ poem Mametz Wood, it drew on written material by the poets who fought in or witnessed one of the war’s bloodiest conflicts – the Battle of Mametz Wood, in which 4,000 of the 38th (Welsh) Division were killed or wounded.

Mametz falls under Unit 4 of your A-Level study: Text in Performance

In this unit, you will need to study two complete texts and know each in their entirety. You are being asked to demonstrate your knowledge, understanding and skills in interpreting texts for performance and to do this through a written examination. When you approach this unit you should do so in two ways – firstly, in a practical way, as though you are the actor, director, oe designer of the play and secondly, as an informed member of a theatre audience.

In this unit you must remember that you are being assessed on two things:

1. That you can demonstrate your knowledge and understanding of how theatre is created and performed
2. That you are able to analyse and evaluate the work of others.

We hope that these video resources and accompanying exercises will help you in your study of Mametz.

Download the Mametz lesson plan for teachers.

Download the Mametz Unit 4 A-Level Study Text in Performance exercises.

Among the soldiers who took part in the battle were several key Welsh and English war poets, including Robert Graves, David Jones, Siegfried Sassoon and Llewelyn Wyn Griffith, and Sheers’ own great, great uncle, William Gwyn Davies.

Owen Sheers: Mametz Wood

For years afterwards the farmers found them –
the wasted young, turning up under their plough blades
as they tended the land back into itself.

A chit of bone, the china plate of a shoulder blade,
the relic of a finger, the blown
and broken bird’s egg of a skull,

all mimicked now in flint, breaking blue in white
across this field where they were told to walk, not run,
towards the wood and its nesting machine guns.

And even now the earth stands sentinel,
reaching back into itself for reminders of what happened
like a wound working a foreign body to the surface of the skin.

This morning, twenty men buried in one long grave,
a broken mosaic of bone linked arm in arm,
their skeletons paused mid dance-macabre

in boots that outlasted them,
their socketed heads tilted back at an angle
and their jaws, those that have them, dropped open.

As if the notes they had sung
have only now, with this unearthing,
slipped from their absent tongues

Charge of the Welsh Division at Mametz Wood, 11 July 1916 by Christopher Williams
With the kind permission of National Museum Wales

Please see below the reading list that was used by NTW’s Production team to help inform their own interpretation of the text:

Up to Mametz and Beyond by Llewlyn Wyn Griffith, Edited by Jonathon Riley (Pen & Sword)
Trench Talk, Words of the First World War by Peter Doyle & Julian Walker (Spellmount)
The Wipers Times with an introduction by Christoper Westhorp (Conway Publishing)
Trench: A History of Trench Warfare on the Western Front by Stephen Bull (Osprey Publishing)
Uniforms of World War 1 by Jonathan North, Consultant – Jeremy Black MBE (Lorenz Books)