Young people from a Creative Partnerships Durham Sunderland ‘School of Creativity’ will quite literally juggle the three R’s during a week of Circus Training.

When parents hear the words "I want to join the circus" they usually fear the worst, but young people attending Greenfield Arts College are being offered the chance to try their hand at a host of specialist performances activities.

On a national scale 1,033,815 pupils are expected to take part in ‘Shine’ across 2,276 schools; England’s first national schools festival. It aims to support young people by developing creative programmes which build their confidence, develop their ‘critical’ thinking skills and place creativity at the heart of their learning.

The kind of wacky and wonderful skills on offer at Greenfield will include acrobatics, clowning, rhythm drumming, puppetry and the infamously titled HUMAN CANNON (the cannon exercise has a scientific focus).

These specialist skills will also be paired up with other creative subjects, for example, singing, drama, poetry, creative writing and playing the steel pans.

The Circus Training Week plans to offer every young person in Year 5 the ultimate creative arts experience. The highly expressive programme will enable the imaginative exercises to implement elements of the conventional three R’s.

Katy Milne, Community Arts Coordinator for Greenfield said: "This week is all about allowing the young people to take ownership of their learning and to provide them with exciting creative opportunities."

Katy believes the skills being learnt by the young people can be easily transferred into other areas of the curriculum and are essential skills that can be recognised in the business community [inc. team building and communication], allowing the Circus Training exercise to morph into different areas of learning.

Katy continues: "I hope the fresh approach to introducing creativity into the day-to-day structure of school life enables the young people to explore the different challenging activities and allows them to develop an independent ‘have a go’ mentality. Our Shine Festival showcase promises to be a real hit with parents, teachers and pupils alike."

Ian Defty is a youth worker and creative practitioner who has worked in the area of circus skills for the past five years. Ian will be at Greenfield all week teaching his specialist abilities to the masses.

Ian will teach the young people Diablo, Poi and plate spinning. Ian (51) works at Newton Aycliffe Youth Centre and for Education in the Community; he believes the Circus Skills week will be an intrinsic way of developing new and exciting avenues for the young people. Circus training is a great way to fine tune a person’s hand-eye coordination, a perfect skill for sports and other intense activities.

The circus skills programme will show the young people of Greenfield just what true dedication can achieve, as to become good at a certain skill it takes a lot of hard slog and commitment. Traits that can be invaluable at school and in the workplace.