Case Studies

Diageo GB

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  Title:

  Smashed

  - a Responsible Drinking Education Programme

  Overall Aim:

  To challenge young people’s attitudes to alcohol and empower them to make informed decisions about alcohol consumption in the future.

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  Details

  Currently touring across the UK, Smashed will visit 75 secondary schools in areas including the North East, Hull, Greater Manchester, London and Portsmouth.

  The play follows three young friends for whom alcohol forms a part of their day to day activity. As the audience hears their justifications for its use and witness the powerful social pressure they inflict on each other, the young friends find themselves in a situation that will affect the direction of each of their lives forever.

  The programme, which targets pupils in years 7 and 8, uses a variety of innovative techniques designed to capture the hearts and minds of participants. Forum theatre allows us to re-visit scenes in the play to identify poor decisions which led to risk, and consider why they happened, then develop strategies for resisting peer pressure and making correct decisions.

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  Key Challenge

  To create a meaningful and involving learning experience with a large number of young people in a short space of time.

  Our team spend a full day in each school to ensure we reach as many young people as possible. The day is broken down into hour-long sessions where we work with 60 young people at a time. Each session includes a 20 minute performance and 40 minute interactive workshop session with activities and exercises which use the performance as a means of exploring with the students the risks associated with irresponsible drinking.

  The small numbers of young people enable the learning experience to be more intense, focussed, and active.

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  Outcomes

  This project is still in delivery, but it is being fully researched and evaluated. The results of this will be published once the project is complete.

  "I have to say that, of the various productions we have had in the school over recent years, this rates as one of the best. The pace was brisk, with excellent acting and great empathy with our young people in the question / hot-seat sessions.

  The workshops generated a lot of interest and positive feedback as expected. This resulted in 89 pupils (the majority of which were KS3) visiting an alcohol related drop in at lunchtime the next day"

  Mrs A M Stagg, Director of Learning, Sir Henry Cooper School