The Bank of Dreams & Nightmares

WHAT WE DO.

We are a registered charity in West Dorset and we offer FREE creative writing workshops to children aged 7-18 in the West Dorset area of the UK. We want to show children just how far their words and stories can take them, so we work with industry professionals to create inspirational workshops that all have a
real world outcome. How about writing a campaign for a cause you feel strongly about and then seeing it made by professionals so you can present it to local government or businesses? What if you wrote some song lyrics, and then are able to see a real musical artist take your words and make it into a real recording you can share with the world? Or how about you become the lead defence lawyer for a special mock trial in a real court house where your persuasive arguments determine whether someone is guilty or not guilty? The possibilities are endless and at The Bank of Dreams & Nightmares we want to have fun showing children that it all starts with an idea, a story, some words, and where that can take you is the exciting part.

Our focus is on those children who are most under resourced, who normally do not have access to these types of things but deserve them just as much as anyone else.

We will be housed in a real bank in Bridport, but instead of money we deal in the currency of stories, and at the back of the store, if you know where to look, is a secret door that leads to the writing centre where the real magic happens.

We work with both primary and secondary schools during term time providing one-off story writing workshops with the end result being published authors or broadcast podcasts! We also work in collaboration with secondary schools to develop longer term long projects where the outcome is a published anthology of the young writers’ stories.

We offer after school clubs for children to develop their writing and get involved in longer workshop projects that currently range from creating their own quarterly newspaper to a sketch comedy workshop, with the final sketches being made by professional actors.

OUR IMPACT.

The Bank of Dreams & Nightmares is committed to practically addressing educational inequalities and the opportunity gap faced by young people from less advantaged backgrounds. We work in communities with high levels of socio-economic inequality, where we are providing a critical link between local schools, arts organisations, higher education institutions, and the commercial sector.

Our aim is to help children and young people to discover and harness the power of their own imaginations and creative writing skills. The Bank of Dreams & Nightmares strives to improve children’s behaviour, engagement, essential life skills, and wellbeing - the root causes of exclusion.

“The story-writing and poetry workshops provided by The Bank of Dreams & Nightmares have been an invaluable part of our whole-school approach to improving writing for pupils, particularly those who are disadvantaged this year. Anecdotal feedback from pupils and parents has been extremely positive, with many talking enthusiastically about stories they have been inspired to write outside of school.  Similarly, the teaching staff have found the sessions valuable and taken many strategies back into the classroom with them.

Since September, the attainment of disadvantaged pupils in writing has shown good improvement: 90% of pupils have at least made the expected progress.  I am certain that the work of The Bank of Dreams & Nightmares has made a significant contribution to this.” 

- Mr Overment Head teacher Salway Ash School

At its core The Bank of Dreams & Nightmares is also about something much broader and more inclusive; it is about using the creative practice of writing and storytelling to strengthen local children and teenagers from all backgrounds, to be resilient, creative and successful shapers of their own lives.