January 2025
Baulk release on the news of Kirkby Fleetham Church of England Primary School Closure.
Baulk is saddened by the news that Kirkby Fleetham Church of England Primary School is to close at the end of this academic year.
It doesn’t seem long ago the school was nationally recognised by winning a Smiley Charity Film Award with enormous support from regional news, particularly BBC Radio York. Even the Prime Minister – at the time – sent his support and congratulations.
After their night of glitz and glamour at The Odeon, Leicester Square, the school embarked on a bold and ambitious project to write a musical about their experience and the school very kindly allowed us to document their creative process. Our focus was to explore creative education. Powell and Pressburger’s ‘Red Shoes’ asks the question, ‘would you die for art?’ We were excited to see how far creativity could be pushed within the confines of our education system.
There is a sycamore tree by the school that the children play on... the play tree. In the musical the play tree is in danger of being cut down. The children learn the play tree’s roots began to grow the day the first brick of the school was laid. Their roots are ‘woven together like the chords of life’ and their fates are entwined. The children have to find a way to save the tree and the school. As Oscar Wilde put it, Life imitates art far more than art imitates Life.’
There is a moment in the play that asks us to think about imagination:
ISAAC
I can’t imagine never being able to hear play tree.
ESME
Well soon the matter will be taken out of our hands.
We won’t stop talking to play tree because we’ve grown up,
we’ll stop because he’s not here anymore.
We are reminded of what the late, David Lynch once said, ‘We think we understand the rules when we become adults but what we really experience is a narrowing of the imagination’.
Although imagination and creativity can be met with resistance in adulthood - due to conformity, practicalities, the fear of failure, and our increasing digital dependence - we observed absolute faith in the creative process by the children and we are impressed the leadership allowed the school to take a risk in making the musical over a prolonged period of academic time; so much so that we are exploring imagination and creative education further before moving to a post-production phase.
We are also in conversation with a writer/director/producer to apply techniques to tell a better story.
During the process of filming we asked the children to think about the play tree in terms of its presence and their emotional connection to it by answering one of four questions:
1) Imagine the play tree was going to be cut down, how would you say goodbye? Write to the play tree to say goodbye.
2) “People are like trees.” Discuss this statement.
3) Poet Joyce Kilmer said: “I think that I shall never see. A poem lovely as a tree.” What do you think this means? Do you think you could write a poem about the play tree?
4) “Through time, people have looked to trees to make sense of our lives.” What do you think this means? How and why are we, as people, connected to trees?
A poem by one of the children:
Our winter tree is here for me
Although the leaves have fallen off, he is still our tree
Although his branches are so bare, he is still our tree
Although the play tree cried, he is still our tree
Whenever I am sad, forever I will know, he is still our tree
He is our play tree
He is our song tree
I can climb his many branches
I am reaching for the stars
We will stay here dear play tree because you are ours.
B14h23m29s20jul2023y
March 2023
Baulk is currently working with a primary school in North Yorkshire.
Watch Us Grow (Working Title) is a documentary about the making of a primary school musical. A small rural school in North Yorkshire win a Smiley Charity Film Award at a night of glitz and glamour at The Odeon, Leicester Square, with a song and film created by the primary school teacher.
The morning after the awards, while running around London’s Covent Garden trying to find a suitable place in which to conduct a live BBC radio interview, the primary school teacher is inspired to write a musical about the experience.
Back home, the primary school teacher and a local folk singer/songwriter set about writing an original musical, which will become a large-scale creative community project that will bring together pupils past and present, parents and village residents, and a BBC radio presenter, in one fantastic piece of live musical theatre in the last week of their summer term.
The documentary is an exploration into the creative process, creative education, and rurality.
