Co-Production, Community & Creative Learning

Stories Made Together

Community, education and co-production — the Nick Owen Publishing way

Nick Owen Publishing (NOP) is best known for its books, characters and that unmistakable “Nick voice” — but there’s another strand that runs through everything we do: making stories with people, not just about them.

This page is a home for the work that sits at the intersection of:

  • community (belonging, place, local memory)
  • education (skills, confidence, literacy, participation)
  • co-production (participants as makers, not “audience”)
  • creative outputs (books, scripts, publications, learning resources)

Sometimes the output is a book. Sometimes it’s a script. Sometimes it’s a workshop model or a set of teaching materials. But the method is consistent: create the conditions, co-make the work, and leave something behind that the community can genuinely use.

What we mean by co-production

Co-production isn’t a buzzword for us. It’s a practical discipline.

It means:

  • people’s ideas are not extracted but are shaped with care and credited properly
  • workshops don’t end in “nice participation” but in real artefacts
  • the process is structured, safe and enjoyable, especially for participants who think they “can’t write”
  • the final output carries the voice of the group, not the ego of the facilitator

Tiny Stories

Small forms that unlock big participation

One of the most effective tools in NOP’s co-production toolkit is the creation of “tiny stories” : short, playful, low-pressure pieces of writing that help people find their voice quickly.

In Closing Schools for the Future, tiny stories are presented as a method for capturing the “small” lived experiences that often get lost behind official narratives — the human-scale moments of memory, loss, humour, tension, pride and change.  This approach is powerful because it:

  • makes writing doable in minutes, not hours
  • turns “I’m not a writer” into “I’ve made something”
  • creates material that can stand alone or be expanded into bigger narratives
  • helps communities surface what institutions often miss: the micro-stories that carry identity and meaning 4.Closing Schools for the Future

In that paper, the tiny-stories method is connected to microfiction/very short story disciplines (e.g., fixed word-limits and strong story-shape), and is used deliberately as a technique for producing a collection that becomes more meaningful when read together. 4.Closing Schools for the Future

In NOP projects today, tiny stories remain a “confidence engine”: they warm up groups fast, generate publishable fragments, and create a bridge from workshop play to finished outputs.

(Tiny Stories Starter Pack: see the boxed callout on this page.)

Examples of co-produced work

Hull nursery school — co-produced writing with parents (“Tell Your Stories”)

A formative strand of this practice was developed through doctoral research and associated community work in Hull: a co-produced writing programme with parents connected to a nursery school / Sure Start context (McMillan Nursery School / Sure Start).

The work used:

  • structured prompts and playful short forms eg haiku and text messages
  • interviewing and story-gathering
  • “collective composition” and gentle editorial shaping

…and crucially moved beyond workshops into tangible public outputs, including a community newsletter and longer-form collaborative writing (including a community-authored play script). The point wasn’t to “teach writing” in the abstract, but to make writing feel like something families could own.

Co-produced curriculum through drama — AND YET IT MOVES… (Galileo)

NOP’s work also includes curriculum-led, enquiry-based drama writing that gives children real agency over learning. AND YET IT MOVES… is a scenario for Year 5 that uses drama to open multiple curriculum journeys (science, history, politics, rhetoric, debate, film making and scriptwriting). It is explicitly designed to be co-made over time — evolving into either a play or film script produced by the class. 

Large-scale co-authorship — Gulliver’s Travels 2999

This is co-production at its most joyful and ambitious: a reimagining of Swift that becomes a multi-voice, multi-format script built with a primary school community (including recorded/“Skype call” sections and live scenes). The piece is credited to multiple named contributors and “the pupils of St Gabriels Primary School”, showing a genuinely shared authorship model. 

Inclusive / critical pedagogy in performing arts — The Puppet Question revisited

NOP’s co-production approach is also underpinned by serious thinking about power, voice, gaze and authorship in performance and education. The Puppet Question revisited interrogates who holds creative power, who is centred or marginalised, and how workshops can deliberately disrupt “single-voice” control. It includes practical workshop methods (e.g., automatic writing, group text-making, story deconstruction and “re-situation”) designed to multiply voices and reauthor dominant narratives. 

Scripted cultural satire as learning text — The Land of Adolonia

Alongside participatory work, NOP also develops authored scripts that function as provocations for discussion and learning — in this case, a satirical “nation-state” of adolescence that makes space for themes like identity, body culture, media, and contradiction. It’s part of the wider NOP practice of using story worlds as tools for reflection, debate and creative response.

Via Cultura — cultural exchange as co-creation

Co-production also travels. In Via Cultura exchange work, the emphasis is reciprocal making: cultural exchange not as “touring”, but as co-created experiences where participants jointly design, reflect, and produce work across borders.

Case Studies

Hull — Tell Your Stories (McMillan Nursery School / Sure Start)

What it was: A co-produced writing programme with parents/community members connected to McMillan Nursery School, designed to surface “stories from your streets” and the nursery’s living history.

  • Published community writing: a newsletter showcasing poems, interviews and ultra-short “txt stories” created by participants.
  • Creative progression pathway: planned next-step outputs (e.g. plays, songs, anthology), building a sustained writing culture rather than a one-off activity.
  • Collaborative authorship: progression into longer-form co-written script development through the McMillan Writers Group.

Galileo — AND YET IT MOVES… (Year 5 Science Through Drama)

What it was: A drama scenario placing children inside Galileo’s final days to investigate science, knowledge, power, evidence and integrity through role, debate and writing.

  • Multiple curriculum journeys: an enquiry spine that can connect science, history, politics, rhetoric and writing.
  • Co-produced script development: week-by-week scene writing and research leading to a play or film script produced by the class.
  • Student agency + ethical debate: pupils make decisions in role and practise argument, evidence and moral reasoning.

Gulliver’s Travels 2999 — Large-Scale Co-Authorship (St Gabriel’s Primary)

What it was: A futuristic adaptation of Swift developed as a multi-voice performance script, combining live and recorded sections and crediting shared authorship across contributors and pupils.

  • Genuine shared authorship: credited to multiple named co-authors and the pupils of St Gabriel’s Primary School.
  • Mixed-media performance form: integrates recorded dialogue alongside live scenes, widening participation and roles.
  • Big themes made playable: ecology, conflict and “saving the planet” explored through humour and invented worlds children can own.

The Puppet Question Revisited — Methods for Multiplying Voice

What it was: A practice/research enquiry into power, authorship and representation in participatory performance, with workshop methods designed to disrupt “single-voice” control.

  • Concrete co-writing techniques: whole-group text-making methods that force shared control and surface “rebel voices”.
  • Inclusive creative access: structured approaches for working with challenging texts and enabling multiple interpretations without gatekeeping.
  • Ethical lens on representation: interrogates who is centred, who is marginalised, and how to avoid “assimilation” disguised as inclusion.

Our method: how the work is designed

Most projects follow a pattern:

  1. Create trust + playful structure
    Prompts, games, short forms, interviews, drawing, mapping — multiple entry points.
  2. Gather material in ways that feel human
    Stories, sayings, memories, local detail, humour, awkwardness, pride — all valid.
  3. Shape without stealing
    Editing as care: coherence, clarity and readability, while preserving group voice.
  4. Make a real artefact
    Book, script, publication, learning resource, performance moment — something durable.
  5. Celebrate + leave a legacy
    Launches, readings, showcases, library/community handovers, downloadable resources.

What you can commission NOP to do

Depending on context and partners, NOP can support:

  • co-produced writing programmes (families, communities, schools)
  • intergenerational story and local history projects
  • children’s story development (including writer/illustrator partnerships)
  • scripts and performance writing created with participants
  • education resources (PSHE/creative units, reflective toolkits)
  • evaluation-friendly documentation (light-touch, ethical, participant-first)

Who this is for

If you’re:

  • a library service
  • a school or early-years setting
  • a cultural organisation
  • a local authority / place partnership
  • a youth voice network
  • a funder looking for credible participatory models

…we should talk.

Work with us

If you’d like to commission or explore a partnership, get in touch via Nick Owen Publishing.

Bring us your place, your people, and your question.
We’ll help you make the story — together.

Tiny Stories Starter Pack

A 20-minute co-produced writing activity used in NOP community and education projects: quick, playful, low-pressure writing that builds power through a collection of micro-pieces.

1) Pick your container (choose one)

  • 55-word story (title not included). Title max 7 words. Include: setting, character(s), conflict, resolution.
  • 100-word tiny story. Optional challenge: don’t use the same word twice (contractions allowed).

2) Optional flavour rules (choose 1–2)

  • The ordinary with a hint of the fantastic
  • Little things with big effects
  • The secret under the surface
  • Leaves an aftertaste

3) The 20-minute run-sheet

  1. 0:00–2:00 — Spark: Choose one prompt. Read it once. No discussion.
  2. 2:00–5:00 — Gather: Jot 6–10 quick words/phrases: a place, an object, a sound, a person, a “tiny moment”.
  3. 5:00–12:00 — Write: Draft your tiny story in the chosen container. Keep it moving.
  4. 12:00–16:00 — Pair edit (gentle): Swap with a partner. Each partner suggests one cut + one sharper word (no rewriting someone else’s voice).
  5. 16:00–20:00 — Read & collect: Read 4–6 aloud. Celebrate. Photograph/collect the pieces. Repeat next session.

4) Prompts (pick one)

  • Lost key / missing screw: a tiny thing goes missing. It changes the whole day.
  • The thing we’ll miss: something small that would be lost if this place changed.
  • A rumour in the corridor: you overhear something that shifts the mood. What happens next?
  • The object with a secret: an everyday thing holds a story (bench, badge, lunchbox, map).
  • Tiny hero moment: an ordinary act turns out to be brave.
  • The place that remembers: write in the voice of a place (library corner, staffroom, playground, bus stop).

How we use these: as a confidence engine, as publication-ready fragments, and as the “human-scale” details that build a bigger shared story when collected together.