Creative Learning and work with young people

Omidaze – Oh My Days! -A colloquial expression of amazement and disbelief originating in schools in Inner London at the turn of the Century.

Helping young people become the people they have the potential to be.

Yvonne Murphy (the founder and director of Omidaze) has over 30 years experience in creative learning and is a qualified and experienced English & Drama teacher who has taught and worked in schools all over London, Wales and Europe. Yvonne was one of the first Creative Agents and a Creative Practitioner for the Arts Council of Wales Lead Creative Schools Scheme and has a particular interest in Creative Classroom design and use. Yvonne uses her skills and knowledge to thread creative learning into all of Omidaze’s artistic practice.

“I am really keen to work with all stakeholders to share my approaches to creative learning and creative classrooms.” Yvonne Murphy

Omidaze design, produce and deliver workshops, projects, strategies and training which put creativity at the heart of learning and which raises expectations and outcomes for young people.

Omidaze has included young people in the professional theatre-making process with our Open Rehearsal Strategy and our workshops in schools have visited some of the most deprived areas of North and South Wales.

Let us help you improve attainment, confidence, self-esteem and positive outcomes for your young people through creativity.

Drowning in paperwork?

Tying yourself in knots trying to work out what to do?

Omidaze (Oh My Days) Productions can help.

Email omidaze@outlook.com

We specialise in:

• Democratic Education
• Creative Learning strategies and schemes of work
• Co-creation with students
• Designing Creative Classrooms and Creative Learning Environments
• Creative Learning across the Curriculum using creative techniques.
• The Five Creative Habits of Mind.
• Open Rehearsals
• INSET/CPD/Professional Learning Design & Delivery for Primary and Secondary teachers
• Workshop Design and Delivery for students of all ages from Reception to 6th Form
• Training Practitioners

Areas of work include:

• Interactive workshops on our democratic systems and structures in the UK
• Creative Conversations
• Open Space Facilitation
• Introduction to using Drama
• Pushing back the desks – Drama in the classroom
• Page to Stage
• Teacher Directors & Student Actors approaches to new writing and classic texts
• Drama Toolkits
• Introduction to Shakespeare to Advanced Shakespeare
• Practical Approaches to Set Texts
• Bespoke Drama, Story-telling, Creative Writing, Script-writing and Literacy Workshops,
• Democracy workshops
• Literacy & Numeracy Projects
• Teacher Packs
• Residencies & Schemes of work
• Transition Days with Drama

Access to knowledge is power. Education is everything. The sharing of power is social justice. Young curious minds are hungry to learn and want that learning to be fun and stimultating.

The Omidaze Shakespeare Summer School began in 2008 in Penarth, South Wales. We went on to produce annual summer schools, adding a Young Actors Summer School in 2015. Omidaze  summer school partners included Albert Primary School, Stanwell School, St Cyres School, Chapter, Cardiff and The Atrium, University of South Wales.

“I use a creative process formed over many years and from working with many other brilliant practitioners which allows young people to first build as an ensemble before they they then begin to hear and respond physically to text and then build towards speaking the text. Only at the very end of the process, when they have played and had fun with the text and have a sense of ownership of it, do the young people work with the written text. The process is built on creative play, response and exploration. It is a framework of games and activities in which there is room for the young people to go off at a tangent and their individual and collective ideas and responses to be explored”

As well as designing and delivering all of  Omidaze’s Creative Learning work, workshops, teacher training and annual summer schools Yvonne has worked for many of Britain’s leading Theatre Company’s and organisations specialising in work with young people and training including the Royal National Theatre, The Shakespeare Schools Festival, The MouseTrap Foundation, Bristol Old Vic, Plymouth Theatre Royal, The English Shakespeare Company and Welsh National Opera. Yvonne has also been a tutor for The Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama’s Young Actors’ Studio since it began.