TEENAGERS have been passing their love of performance and literature to younger children in a scheme one teacher hopes can go from strength to strength.

Look Who’s Talking, which has just finished for a third year, sees Year 10 students from Marlborough School in Woodstock work with Year Four, Five and Six pupils from Stonesfield Primary School in Stonesfield, near Charlbury.

After school sessions saw children get to read poetry and drama, while being coached in speech and drama, culminating in a performance in front of family and friends.

Beth Binnian, deputy headteacher at Stonesfield, said it helped make her pupils more confident, with many of them looking up to the older students.

She added: “It is massively to do with confidence, it improves a lot of the children’s oral speaking skills.

“We are quite focussed on oral skills because if children cannot talk they cannot write.

“The students from Marlborough are fantastic role models and although they are only 15, for nine and 10-year-olds they are almost grown-ups.”

The Marlborough School students, who attended Stonesfield when they were younger, share their enthusiasm for literature and drama with the primary school pupils in the hope it will inspire them to become more engaged with writers such as William Shakespeare.

They also teach the children performance skills and build their confidence for the performance night at the end of the the 12-week course.

This sees the Stonesfield pupils perform in front of friends and family, with children talking about something important to them, reading an extract from their favourite book or performing a poem.

This year’s performance took place on April 28.

Ms Binnian said Look Who’s Talking, which was started to help Marlborough School students complete the volunteering element of the Duke of Edinburgh Award scheme, helped all the children involved.

She said: “Our pupils can remember them being at the school and it lets them see the next stage in their lives.

“One of the girls from Marlborough this year said she had been absolutely terrified of every form of speaking and doing this helped her grow in confidence.

“Early on I have to be very responsible managing the children and structuring the after-school sessions but the students begin to take more control during the 12 weeks.”

This year, 11 pupils took part in the scheme, which Ms Binnian said she believed was the only one of its kind in Oxfordshire.

Nine-year-old Orla O’Gorman was one of the primary school children to benefit, She said: “We’ve done plays and poems. We chose something really special to us then talked about it. I chose a toy I’ve had since I was born, a bear called Bibby with a patch on her eye and arm.”

Ms Binnian said she hoped more more pupils would get involved next year and the scheme would continue to grow.

She said: “At the end of year performance there is huge pride for the children also for the parents.

“They see their children go off to after-school clubs but the performance lets them see the results.”

This year’s tutors from Marlborough were Tara Dolatashahi, 15, and Verity Harding Roberts, 14.

Verity said: “It has been brilliant coming back to my old primary school and seeing everyone working really hard.

“I’ve learnt to work well in a group, it hasn’t just been a matter of me and Tara telling them what to do.

“It has been them giving their ideas back and us working out how to use those ideas collectively as well as making their talents shine individually.”