IGNITING YOUNG MINDS
About
Ignition Arts is the brainchild of Darren Carr and Harriet Smith. We first started delivering workshops in North London and have expanded over the years to all of London, Essex, and Surrey.
Ignition Arts uses drama as a tool to educate, inspire and ignite young minds, offering bespoke drama workshops, creative consultation, mentoring, coaching and training within primary and secondary schools.
Check out the programmes we offer along with our Arts Award programmes and our Shakespeare resources.
Meet The Team
Darren Carr
Over the last 20 years, Darren has gained extensive experience working in a wide range of educational settings working with young people with varied needs. he has worked as a mentor, workshop practitioner, facilitator and Head of Performing Arts.
Darren has always been an energetic, inspiring and motivating force in the classroom with exceptional skill for communicating with young people. Darren has the ability to build relationships with the most emotionally challenging, providing positive encouragement and behaviour management.
Through Darren's work as a freelancer, he has been responsible for organising, developing and delivering a variety of workshops and performances in London, Essex, Surrey, and Suffolk, in 2018 alone Darren has worked with and inspired over 5000+ young people.
Due to the nature of his work Darren often has to be resourceful, this highlights his flexibility and ability to work spontaneously, reacting to situations as they occur.
'Darren is a dream come through in the classroom'
Harriet Smith
Harriet has 12 years experience in running successful secondary drama departments, writing and delivering schemes of work and guiding students through both GCSE and Btec qualifications. In recent years she has single-handedly turned around a failing department into a success, with 100% of students now achieving their target grades in drama. Students both respect and are inspired by her.
Harriet also delivers CPD training for teaching and support staff addressing behaviour management, body language, creating a creative environment and performing arts across the curriculum. All her training sessions gain 100% positive feedback with participants highlighting the interactive nature of the courses.
Harriet has been writing theatre for young people for many years, available on this website are abridged versions of Shakespeare plays designed for years 4-6 these can be purchased along with a teachers pack and options on workshops.
Harriet also works as a creative consultant developing and facilitating award-winning interactive experiences to teach and support people and families affected by MS.
