Our Early Years performances bring live theatre to young learners in our main partner schools. These performances bring a wealth of benefits to children who won’t necessarily have had this experience before. The majority of the performances are traditional tales – linking closely to core book sets that each Nursery and Reception class use throughout their curriculum and supporting the early development of literacy and reading skills, as well as speech and language development. Most performances are also performed in 2 languages – currently English along with Portuguese. We believe this is really important for children who are multi language learners since research shows that improving early literacy skills in a child’s home language has a positive impact on literacy skills in their second language.

This programme began with a pilot performance for 2 schools in 2022, followed by 2 performances for 10 schools in 2023. Thanks to funding from The Jersey Community Foundation and Ports of Jersey there will be 4 performances in 2024, with funding currently secured for a further 3 in 2025.