Venue focus: Blackpool Grand Theatre

Going some way towards compensating for the absence of curriculum drama, the Grand Theatre, Blackpool, is rolling out one of the country's most inspirational and far-reaching education programmes for children and young people. Its driving force is Celine Wyatt, a former teacher and theatre practitioner, whose work with the town's children and young people was recognised by two national awards in 2023.

Using the government's Resilience Framework, which has been around since the mid-noughties, Wyatt began developing a story-led model to help vulnerable youngsters in and around Blackpool build confidence and learn to deal with adversity.

She says, ‘I asked myself how could I open up the power and potential of stories on stage and use them as a gateway? That's when I came up with the Resilience Storycard, connecting elements of a story with resilient moves, skills and strategies. I commissioned various artists to test ways of developing the practice, and we took that into eight local schools and youth organisations in 2017-19.’