Literacy & Education Specialist
Isy’s approaches centre around oracy and literacy, harnessing imaginative play and collaborative groupwork to aid creative responses to a museum collection, theatrical production or class topic.
Isy has 7 years experience as a secondary English teacher and trainer in the UK and Rwanda, followed by 14 years’ experience in learning and governance roles in literary museums: The Roald Dahl Museum and Story Centre, The Story Museum, Keats House, and Jane Austen’s House Museum.
Recent Commissions
Museum of Gloucester
January to April 2025
“Isy’s sessions are brilliant and now make us stand out amongst the museum sector as offering something truly original. Our city partners and teachers are hugely impressed with the sessions created.”
-Amy Washington, Programme & Exhibitions Officer, Museum of Gloucester
Brief
To research, create, and train staff to deliver a suite of school session plans for Key Stage 2 students visiting the Museum, working with a budget of £6000.
Deliverables
• 9 school session plans based on Museum collections using a storytelling approach, including 3 Key Stage 2 lesson plans, related to Iron Age, Romans, Saxons and Vikings
• a new City Story Walk telling stories of local Gloucester history
• 1 Key Stage 1 lesson plan on ‘Stories, Rhymes and Toys through Time’
• 3 session plans based on Medieval Fairy Tales to tell in the Medieval priory Blackfriars.
The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust
Regular freelance commissions between 2020 and 2025
Brief
To create, deliver and present written and digital teaching ideas that use plots and themes of Shakespeare plays for the Shakespeare Week website resource for Primary Teachers Welcome To Shakespeare Week
Deliverables
2023 – A ‘Snappy CPD’ film to aid Primary Teachers in top tips to engaging students with Shakespeare’s life and tales from his plays, through storytelling and object-handling.
2022 - A series of Teacher Resources aimed to tell the story of The Tempest to Early Years students through rhymes and action-songs.
2021 – A series of resources for Primary Teachers applying the 5 Ways to Wellbeing to Shakespearean characters
2020 – A Snappy Storytelling film of The Tempest for KS2 teachers and students
EduPlanet
December 2016 to present
Language contact, the fact we had to use it to communicate, was a way to learn and try our English skills in a natural environment. When it comes to Miss Isy, our teacher and director, she is an amazing person with great passion for her work. She is a person with great energy, happy to try new things, and I think that’s why the show was so amazing.
Zuzanna, student participant in Wroclaw play, 2019
Brief:
Various projects aimed to upskill Polish teachers and students by using immersive performance methods to aid the acquisition of English
Deliverables
• 2025 – Creation of an original script reinterpreting The Jungle Book for a school of 250 students, so that every student had a role to play and some English to speak
• 2024 – Creation of an original script reinterpreting Robin Hood
• 2023 – Storytelling Trainer to 50 Librarians at the ‘Book Island Conference’ in Warsaw, demonstrating to librarians how to use storytelling techniques when reading books to young people
* Every December in 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019 – Created and directed 3 plays for 3 schools based in Poland, for 7-16 year olds, based both in England (for rehearsals) and Poland (for performance)
• Summer of 2017 and of 2018 – Director in Residence for a theatre week in Poland for 40 students.
Theatre Alibi
Annual projects from 2017 to 2022
Isabella Mead has developed several excellent Teacher Resource Packs to accompany Theatre Alibi performances, which have been very well-received by Primary schools we work with regularly. She understands Theatre Alibi as a company and this means that our methods and ethos are reflected in the high quality of work she produces.
Nikki Sved, Artistic Director, Theatre Alibi
Brief
To create, KS1 and KS2 to accompany original lesson plans and teacher resource packs for Early Yearsl plays created by Theatre Alibi. Deliverables
• 2022 – Ten Lesson Plans and resources for ‘The Parcel’ (3 for Early Years, 3 for KS1 and 4 for KS2)
• 2021 – Eight Lesson Plans and Resources ‘Stand up! (and Boogie)’ (4 for KS1, 4 for KS2)
• 2020 – Twelve Lesson Plans and Resources for ‘Down to Earth’ (4 for Early Years, 4 for KS1, 4 for KS2)
• 2019 – Resource Pack for ‘I Believe in Unicorns’ for KS1 and KS2
• 2018 – Resource Pack for ‘Table Mates’, for KS1 and KS2.
