All the World’s A Stage for the children of Lewes taking part in Patina's Moving On Parade

They create new opportunities for children and teachers to work directly with local professional artists which culminated in the Moving On Parade – a stunning moving tide of sculptures, costumes and music – a celebration of the local children’s transition from primary school into adolescence.

This year's theme is "All The World's A Stage " is celebrating the fun and drama of theatre and performance. Each school will represent a different play on Moving On day, having spent several days in workshops with Patina artists to make their wonderful costumes.

To make the project extra special, Patina has been working with local young people’s theatre group Kaleidoscope this year to explore the plays through drama workshops with the children in their schools. One school teacher commented that this had gone down really well. “Such a great example of cross curricular work and wonderful experience for the children”.

Because theatre is also a safe place to explore emotions, the year 6s in the parade have been invited to write down how they feel about moving to secondary school and becoming teenagers. What they have written will be integrated into the parade as bunting streaming from large scale international theatre masks and will also be able to be read in the Paddock after the celebrations.

Back in 2020, the Moving On Parade sadly had to be virtual due to lockdown. The Patina team did all they could to give the children as close to a full Moving On experience as they could, teaching them online how to make avatars of themselves and making a video of the children’s creations that can still be seen on the charity’s YouTube channel. Patina promised at the time to give them an opportunity to experience Moving On in all its glory if and when that was possible.

Director Caroline Croft has not forgotten that promise. “We said we would try to make it up to them if we could and we’re determined to make that possible. We can’t have a year group that don’t experience this rite of passage, if they still want to. This year’s the year when that can happen.”

The team are therefore running a workshop to give a group of year 9s the chance to learn carnival arts and help make some of the big structures that they will get to carry in the parade. They are also working with Create Music to create a year 9 samba band for Moving On, which will be joined by year 6 players in the Paddock after the parade. As is the case every year, some year 9s will also get the chance to go back to their primary schools to help the year 6s make their costumes.

The route starts on Paddock Road moving onto New Road, High Street, Cliffe High Street, School Hill, Market Road, Market Lane, Fisher Street, Mount Pleasant and then back to the Paddock.

Come along and watch the Year 6 children of the Lewes District celebrate Moving On from Primary to Secondary School. Expect to see plays from Shakespeare to Shrek and everything in between!

It’s free to watch the Moving On Parade in central Lewes. The Parade runs from 12:30-1:45pm on Friday July 7 2023.