Building connections
As a freelance creative practitioner with a background in performing arts and teaching, I work with people to help expand creativity and build connections. This often involves hearing individual or collective stories and finding ways to value, share and record those stories.
“With a genuine focus on accessibility, Abbey engages communities fully, creating meaningful outcomes with lasting legacies.”
“Abbey is perhaps the best conversationalist we have ever known, talking to all students about all things.”
Worry Doll
In recent years I’ve been exploring how we can improve our experience of living with illness or long-term conditions, as well as how we experience death, dying and grieving. In 2024 my dad and I published our first picture book, Worry Doll and Polita Puffin, which includes the themes of living with illness and change.
To watch an online version of the book or to find out more, click here.
“What an extraordinary gift for parents, teachers, therapists...in fact anyone alongside a child and their family caught in the midst of uncertainty and changes beyond their control. Immediately I imagined countless children (and adults!) who I know would benefit from being introduced to this story, which is a gloriously rich way of building resilience and a psychologically adaptive approach to potentially traumatic change, but also in sharing the concept of the Worry Doll, and the idea that we all can be a Worry Doll for others, and also that Worry Dolls can be within trusted people around us.”
I’m an advocate for connected and compassionate communities. Locally, I help to run Arbroath and Angus Community Alliance and currently sit on the boards of How it Felt , (a Dundee-based social enterprise working for good mental health through art and puppetry) and Arbroath Connections, (a charity for people with mild to moderate dementia).
“After seeing Abbey perform at a comedy night we decided to ask her to be our (un)official wedding celebrant. We knew to expect heartfelt and funny, we didn’t expect a full-on Mary Poppins pop-up performance to end the ceremony starring our best friends and family! So many of our guests have asked if Abbey’s available to officiate their weddings. We loved our extravaganza!”
As part of the wider community, I’m an active member of:
Community
My regular work includes: co-creative community projects; facilitating drama and movement workshops that utilise music, puppetry and props; leading social singing sessions; writing and directing performances in schools; devising project packs; event hosting; events have included: comedy nights, large-scale community gatherings, weddings, and memorials.
“Abbey is incredibly kind and considerate to participants’ personal experiences and comfort levels.”
Education and experience
I trained in B.B.O and B.A.L ballet, tap and jazz at the Esk Academy of Dance in Montrose until I was 19, before going on to study drama at The Royal Conservatoire of Scotland in Glasgow. I graduated in 2000 with a BA (Hons) Dramatic Studies and the Theatre in Education prize. At this point I moved to London where I worked as a drama facilitator and teacher for nearly 20 years.
While travelling the Americas I gained a Cambridge English Language Teaching for Adults (CELTA) certificate, studying at International House, Playa del Carmen, Mexico.
In 2009 I graduated with a Primary PGCE from the Institute of Education, University College London, in the top percentile of the UK teaching graduates that year.
My teaching includes Nursery, Primary, home tutoring, further education and higher education (visiting lecturer at UCL).
The quality of teaching and assessment
In some of the best teaching, pupils were challenged intellectually, emotionally, and creatively. For instance, in a dance lesson, an inspired choice of music, and the use of characterisation and storytelling, were used to maximum effect to fully involve pupils in the learning process. In this lesson, pupils were inspired to achieve their best.
OFSTED Inspection report
The Children’s House Upper School /Independent school /DfES ref no: 205/6402
Inspection under Section 162A of the Education Act 2002 /Dates of inspection: 27 - 29 June 2006
Lesson teacher Abbey Craig
In my mid-thirties I began an exploration into the culture of birth and death and how we can live, die, and grieve better. My exploration brought me home to Angus in 2018.
Recent training includes Loss and Grief with Penumbra Mental Health and End of Life Aid Skills for Everyone (Ease), a course developed by the Scottish Partnership for Palliative Care.
