Schools, Universities and Workshops
Ian has been called into a number of schools in the UK to discuss his writing and deliver workshops to every age group from primary through to sixth form.
For the International Schools Theatre Association, he has travelled the world working at theatre festivals in just about every continent and with every age group, as well as delivering specialist workshops to teachers. These include a number of scriptwriting master classes for International Baccalaureate film teachers in New York, Atlanta, Los Angeles and Kuala Lumpur. He is an examiner for the I.B. film Diploma Programme. He was heavily involved in the governance of ISTA for a long time and served on the board of trustees for ten years as well as standing as Vice President and working for a number of years as the Assistant Executive Director. He is an honorary life member.
Recently Ian lead a project with Frankfurt International School, working with their Grade 10 Performance Theatre and Grade 11 IB Theatre students . Taking a well known children's story and transforming it into a Covid friendly radio play for 4-7 year olds via Zoom. The IB students were specifically looking at devising from non-theatrical text for the Collaborative Project. The Grade 10's were learning a whole range of devising and writing skills. The Primary Year students at the school will now get a great radio play to listen to with alternative endings. The project is now being rolled out globally across a number of International schools. Recent collaborations have included a monologue writing and performance project with Marymount International School, London. A cross arts scriptwriting project with The International School of Älmhult in Sweden. And helping students to storyboard a physical theatre and shadow puppet based performance at The International School of Lausanne in Switzerland. Ian has also been working with year 9 and 10 theatre students, as well as all IB DP film students at Atlanta International School, running a radio play project at The International School of Geneva as well as working on monologue writing at the International School of La Châtaigneraie and then working with DP theatre students at Cottonwood Classical Preparatory School Albuquerque. Other recent projects include working with Carmel College UK, Praxis Performing Arts UK, leading workshops at the IASAS Cultural Convention for Art & Film in Bangkok, Munich International School, Discovery College Hong Kong, Eyüboğlu High School in Istanbul on camera shots and angles, King George V school Hong Kong, Dulwich College Singapore, the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama and the Canadian International School, Singapore. As well as four week long project with the Hong Kong Academy, a narrative and character project with Sha Tin College Hong Kong and two projects with The Shanghai American School.
In both 2023 and 2024, Ian toured Singapore for over two weeks running projects and workshops for both students and teachers in Film, Theatre and English departments at seven different International Schools. This was then followed by face to face workshops at The American School of Paris, working with IB Theatre, Film and English students. As well as being the artist in residence at Frankfurt International School, working on the Grade 9 Da Vinci Project and attending two ISTA festivals in Bucharest and Belgrade as part of the artistic team.
In 2024 Ian was lucky enough to be invited for a full week's residency at Cairo American College. Before embarking on a three week tour of Hong Kong. Working with Theatre and Film students at The Victoria Shanghai Academy, The Canadian International School of Hong Kong, Sha Tin College and King George V School.
He has also worked extensively in further education. Running modules and delivering master classes at the Universities of Oxford, MMU, Edge Hill, Leeds Trinity, Chester, Staffordshire, Glasgow, Huddersfield, Aberystwyth, Surrey, Leeds Beckett, Worcester, UCLAN, Bolton, Plymouth, Sunderland, SAE, Leeds Arts, Oxford Brookes and Salford. He has been a professional advisor and dissertation supervisor for a number of MA final script projects and has steered a large number of student scripts from initial concept to final draft, in both creative writing and animation departments. As a project leader on Salford’s final year short films in Media City, Ian has seen many of his students go onto success at festivals.
Ian was one of the pioneers behind the 'Plotting & Pitching TV & Radio Drama' workshops. A joint venture between MMU and Edge Hill Universities, working with producers Phil Collinson, John Griffin and Simon Judd. And writers Sally Wainwright, Daisy Coulam and Tony Marchant.
He has had numerous articles on scriptwriting published in various magazines and has been invited to lead workshops in writer's groups across the country. Including a number of ticketed events for the London Writer's Cafe and The National Association of Writer's Groups. He was invited to be a key note speaker at the CEESA (Central and Eastern European Schools Association) conference in Prague.
For more information on workshops please see attached brochure.
Testimonials
"Our sixth form students really enjoyed the session with Ian, which was highly interactive and engaging. Students were asked to contribute spontaneously, which generated a mass of ideas they were able to inject into their own projects. They particularly liked the industry 'insider' information with practical tips on how to get a foot into this competitive field. Ian was engaging, knowledgeable and fun - everything you could want for your students in an enrichment or career session."
English Teacher
"Ian led my most memorable class at Salford University. A short film writing class, he is very intuitive, supporting and knowledgeable on story design. I came away from his classes knowing I'd been engaged in great tuition."
University Student
"I worked with Ian for several years on the delivery of a final year undergraduate video production module. Ian’s responsibility was to supervise fiction projects. This included working collectively and individually with students on idea and script development, and the delivery of one-to-one formative feedback during the production and post-production stages. Ian’s professional experience and knowledge of a wide range of fiction genres and platforms was a real asset to the module. I always found Ian to be professional, reliable and completely committed to the role."
University Lecturer
"I have worked with Ian Pike for 10 years now and he is an excellent screenwriting tutor, both on long term final year projects, first year introduction to script modules and one-off sessions. The students gain a lot from his industry experience and his professionalism, as well as his teaching skills. He is also an excellent colleague to work alongside."
University Creative Writing Programme Leader