Every year The Phileas Fogg Theatre Company is invited to de Meergronden to organise The Little Victorians workshop for the first year bilingual students.  The theatre group specializes in TIE (theatre in education) and it places specific emphasis on English as a foreign language, so it’s the perfect medium to encourage our pupils to speak English.

Together with our first year students the actors of the Phileas Fogg Theatre group prepare an interactive show that allows the pupils to experience first hand what it was like to be a child in Victorian England.  Before the workshop takes place the Victorian period is dealt with during the English lessons, but it’s only during the Little Victorian workshop that this period really comes to life.  Children take the roles of chimney sweeps, servants, beggars, coal miners or factory workers.  The children perform their plays for each other and the whole performance is organised so that each scene swiftly leads on to the next scene, allowing pupils to both take in and enjoy watching their fellow classmates in action.

The workshop is fully interactive and it’s amazing to see how pupils are able to master their roles within a short period of time. The workshops help the pupils become confident with using spoken English and many are amazed to find out that there are able to communicate and follow instructions in English, often the pupils have only been at secondary school for a couple of months.