Mini-residency Experiences

Mini-residencies give groups of children and young people the opportunity to take part in an immersive and interactive theatrical adventure where they get to shape the narrative. Mini-residencies are smaller scale (and therefore cheaper) than a full-scale residency adventure. A mini-residency will generally be for a small group of students and will include a team of three Bamboozle facilitators and artists.

“Thank you for the wonderful  experience. You were all so brilliant, engaging and professional throughout the process. It was a real pleasure to work with you and to go on the journey together with the young people“.

Rachel Hamer, Sunderland Culture – following a mini-residency at Arts Centre, Washington.

“The mini-residency took an idea I had and with your help we developed it into an amazing variety of sessions that worked as a whole but would work so nicely as individual sessions. I am planning to use those for next term to deliver literacy. It has helped me to think about approaching my teaching differently.”

Teacher, Lady Zia Wernher School, Luton

Typical project outline

1. Planning & training day – the Bamboozle team spends a day at your school working with the staff that will be involved in the residency. The Bamboozle team introduces the Approach they’ll be using and together the whole group plans the theme of the adventure and the workshops that will be involved.
2. Off-site planning and preparation – the Bamboozle team prepares resources and works on scripts and music while the school team prepares as necessary with the student group that will be taking part.
3. Delivery days – the Bamboozle team arrives early to set-up the theatrical environment where the adventure will take place. We begin the story at the start of day one and reach an end point at the close of day two.

As well as giving an introduction to the Bamboozle Approach on the planning day we also meet with staff at the end of each residency day to unpack the strategies that have been used and talk about how they can be applied in day-to-day practice.

Examples of mini-residency themes

A mini-residency experience really is a world of possibilities – these are just some of the mini-adventures we’ve been on:

• A quest to steal magical ingredients from a dragon to save the life of an ailing knight with a cursed wound.
• A visit to Tudor Luton to help a builder complete a grand house and prepare a huge celebration feast for its opening.
• The life cycle of a butterfly – an immersive approach to learning about nature.
• An adventure through a scary forest to retrieve magic stones that have been stolen by a troll and take them back to the village where they belong.
• A visit to Professor Proton’s space rocket lab and an accidental blast off into space with a visit to a tropical planet.
• A trip to Brazil – exploring the rhythms of Samba and freeing a mysterious character from a bottle.
• The Firebird Story – exploring a creation myth.

Mini-residencies, as well as being exciting and immersive adventures, also provide the children taking part with many opportunities to extend their learning and gain confidence along the way.

Dates, venues and fees

Mini-residencies usually take place at your school or in theatre or community venue by arrangement. Each mini-residency is designed specifically to suit your requirements. Fees start around £2950.00 but costs depend largely on requirements. Due to the COVID situation many schools are restricting the visitors who access their sites during the school day. We are however still visiting schools for training purposes when the children are not present. If you would like to explore possibilities for setting up a socially distanced training session at your school please don’t hesitate to get in touch via the Contact page. Alternatively you might like to investigate our Online Course offering.