“Thank you very much for the opportunity to learn and play with my child. It has been a magical experience. I love the staff too.”

Mum, BIG Porridge & Play

Credit: Eoin Carey

Big Porridge & Play2024-03-14T17:50:04+00:00

Big Porridge & Play

BIG PORRIDGE & PLAY GLASGOW is a family Storyplay project for families with children under 12. It started with hubs in Ruchill, Whiteinch and the Gorbals, it has also taken place online, outdoors, and in Govan.

What is Big Porridge & Play Glasgow?

At Big Porridge & Play Glasgow (BPPG), families come together to play games, rhymes, songs and participate in imaginary adventures! The sessions also include a healthy, delicious meal round a table, and Reflective Drawing and the Licketyspit Art Gallery, where participants share their thoughts, feelings and ideas. BPPG has brought over 180 families together in their local community, culminating in a Celebration Events with family and friends, and whole city annual celebrations. You can read blogs about the 2019 sessions below or in Happening Now.

BPPG is an expanded version of Porridge & Play, which developed out of our engagement with parents during our flagship early intervention project, LicketyLeap. Porridge & Play is based on the Lickety Playcard repertoire of 38 games, rhymes, songs, traditional street play and imaginary play.

What’s the story so far?

2024

We will be delivering our 8th year of Porridge & Play Glasgow, with sessions this Spring in Maryhill, Cranhill and Bridgeton alongside Online Family Sessions and in August/September we will be back in Govan, Whiteinch and Castlemilk.

2023

We delivered P&P sessions in our Bridgeton, Cranhill & Govan hubs, with sessions in Castlemilk, Whiteinch, Maryhill (previously Ruchill) and online, later in the year.

2022

In the 6^th year of BPPG, we did 7 weekly online sessions as well as 6 weeks of sessions in our Ruchill, Whiteinch and Govan hubs!

We went back to Whiteinch Library and moved locations in Ruchill, running sessions at the Golf Pavillion, as the community centre wasn’t open. We also took the project to Govan for the first time where we had a fabulous time at the Pearce Institute with support from our wonderful Storyplay Champions Bimbo, Toby, Dami, Amir and Ameen.

2021

In 2021 we continued to deliver BPPG online with 19 sessions that were open to families city-wide. We also did additional digital support, including distributing 45 Connecting Scotland Chromebooks. We produced a film about Porridge & Play online as part of the Refugee Action Stories of Resilience series.

BPPG21 also included 8 outdoor sessions at Elder Park, Kelvingrove Park, Linn Park and Tollcross Park. It was fantastic to meet in person with nearly all the families participating in the project, in spite of the continued challenges posed by Covid-19. Our outdoor sessions included adaptations to games to maintain physical distance, and picnics of samosas and fruit, some of which were provided by Lickety Mum Amina.

2020

In 2020 we were due to start BPPG hubs in Easternouse, Milton and Govan, but due to the pandemic, we had to take our work online. This led us to create a wonderful online community of play and friendship, with up to 4 live Storyplay sessions happening on Zoom every week from April-December 2020.

In a year like no other we were delighted to be able to keep fostering social connection and the right to play with families across Glasgow. The majority of participants in our sessions this year were refugees and asylum seekers, many of whom had only recently arrived in Glasgow. We did significant digital inclusion fundraising and provision to include families in our sessions and ensure they had internet access.

Read more about Big Porridge & Play 2020 in Virginia’s Diary and our 2020/21 Annual Report.

2017-19

BPPG developed out of our DRAMATIKA Glasgow pilot (2015-16) and has been funded by the National Lottery Community Fund (previously the BIG Lottery) since 2017. In Year 2, we had an additional Maryhill venue, with funding from the Maryhill Housing Association. We have delivered the project with hundreds of wonderful families, who we stay in touch with through our Children & Families Network. You can download the reports from Years 1-3 below.

A BIG thanks to all of our Actor-Pedagogues, staff, our main funder, the National Lottery Community Fund, and support from Esmee Fairbairn and the Robertson Trust, our partners, The Tall Ship and The Dream Machine, photographer Eoin Carey and filmmaker Jonathan Ley & Jack Hubner, our volunteers & translators, and of course to all our participants!