There are a number of things you can use in order to stimulate and enrich an interesting drama lesson or drama workshop in school. Here are some ideas we here at Act On Info have used in the past.
Music
Music is very evocative and can be used to great effect in a drama lesson or drama workshop to energize a class at the start of as well as relaxing them at the end. It also can be used to stimulate imaginations and discuss issues. Ask your class what images a certain piece of music brings to mind then ask them to make a frozen picture or tableau to illustrate this. Use a song about an issue to explore dilemmas.
 Poems
Using a narrative poem which has a strong central character or which looks at issues or topics can be very useful for stimulating role play, hot seating or movement work.
Pictures/Photographs
You can use interesting pictures you have found in books, newspapers or any old photographs as agreat way to stimulate drama work.. You can ask the pupils to imagine they are in the picture and ask them what they can see, hear, smell, taste and touch. Get them to imagine they are one of the characters in the picture, ask them to say which character they are and give some extra information like how they feel. From here you can ask them to create extra characters and create their own tableau (frozen picture).
Objects
Any unusual or interesting objects can spark a great drama lesson, but everyday objects work just as well. Use objects to build a
story, for example put a pair of boots on the floor and ask the pupils, who owns them? Why are they so worn? What happened to the person who owns them? Ask the pupils to improvise a scene around the boots. If you want to you can give them a starting line to get them going such as “They are my favourite boots..”.
Stories
Use an extract from a story, leaving it at a cliff-hanger moment is a great way to get your pupils thinking “what happens next?” Then get them to create a dramatic scene based on their ideas as to the ending. This is a great way to encourage the pupils to start creating their own stories or plays.
Fables, Myths and Legends
These are great for stimulating drama work as they contain so many different issues and dilemmas and you can ask the pupils to relate the central characters experiences to their own lives.
These are just a few ideas we have used, however if you would like us to come to your school with a Play in a Day or drama workshop please get in touch, we often find our workshops can be very useful to stimulate ideas in teachers as to creative ways of working with theor pupils.
 Role Play As young people grow older, they are faced with some challenging decisions, some are simple but some involve serious moral questions. Its human nature for them to listen to other people in their age group, and peers influence their life, even if they don’t realize it, and is all peer pressure bad?
Positive peer pressure can happen – for example, if one student is excited about their new favorite book, and gets everyone into reading it. However, quite often peers influence each other in negative ways, young people want to do what they know is right but they don’t want to be the one who stands out. Or they simply want to try something that “everybody else” is doing.
So how you work with your class on the topic of peer pressure using drama?
Role Play
Role playing can be a really useful classroom activity, allowing students to understand the effects of peer pressure and can lead into to a great group discussion on the topic.
- Divide the classroom into smaller groups of up to 5.
- Either ask them to think of an incident of peer pressure or give them cards with prompt words on.
- Ask for volunteers in each group to act out their scenarios. Then give them a short amount of time to rehearse. (5 minutes is plenty)
- Ask them to show their scenarios to the rest of the group.
- Have a group discussion on each scenario about what was going on, who was pressuring who, was it positive or negative pressure. Ask them what were their reactions and feelings about the scenario, how would they react if it was happening to them?
- If you have a good group who you think are able to work well, try hot seating, allow the characters to be questioned by their classmates about why they behaved the way they did, and what their feelings were.
- After the role-playing, return to the normal classroom format and open it up to a general discussion on the effects of peer pressure.
P.S. Don’t forget its anti-bullying week on the 14th – 18thNovember, so get in touch if you would like us to help you with an anti-bullying drama workshop!
 - Stop and think – words can hurt
Yes, we know it seems a long way away at the moment as you have just started on your summer holidays, but we already have bookings from much organised teachers wanting our services for 2011’s anti- bullying week so this is just a reminder for you to get in quick!
The theme for anti-bullying week this year is “Stop and think – words can hurt” which ties in nicely to what we can offer schools for anti-bullying week. As all schools are different we offer a number of different options for you, and hope that one of these workshops will meet your needs.
1. Anti-Bullying Play in a Day – This is a great way to introduce or conclude a topic, to promote inclusion and help with revision. Play in a Day is suitable for KS2; the facilitator can work with one class at a time (Up to approx 35 children). The class works with a facilitator starting at the beginning of the school day, and working around your break and lunch times for the day, perform the play for an invited audience of their peers (and parents should you wish to invite them) at the end of the day. The play performed is a 10-15 minute ensemble piece using inventive theatre techniques such as choral speech, stylised movement and mime. This usually takes place at either 2.30pm or 2.45pm.
2. Anti – Bullying Forum Theatre Workshop - Our Happy, Safe and Confident Workshops for Key Stages 1, 2 and 3 pupils aims to raise awareness of bullying and its effects, by using forum theatre techniques to explore the roles of bully, victim and bystander, how bullying makes us feel, and how we can deal with it by developing assertiveness and coping strategies. The workshops for KS 1 and 2 is for one class at a time and for KS3 a maximum of two classes at a time. Workshops last for 30 minutes – 1 hour 15 mins (dependent on age group) and require the use of a school hall or gymnasium. We can do up to a maximum of four workshops in one day.
3. Respect Drama Day – Suitable for KS 1 and 2 we work with 3 or 4 classes throughout the day, each class works with a drama facilitator for 45 minutes – 1 hour to produce a short play/presentation on the theme of anti bullying. When they are not working with the facilitator they are working with their class to create their “Kingdom of Respect”. This includes having a name for their Kingdom and ten rules to live by amongst other things. The classes present their work to the other classes and any other audience you would like to invite at the end of the day. The schedule for the day is dependent on your timetable.
Please get in touch if you would like more information and costs for each drama workshop. There is a discount for two or more days booked together. Enjoy your holidays everyone!
 - Macduff and Macbeth meet in battle
After spending a lot of time working on Friendship Drama Days, we have a bit of a turn around this week working on various Shakespeare projects. It’s great working with young people who at the beginning of the day know practically nothing of the play, and by the end of the day are really keen to tell their version of the story. This week we’ve had false noses, witches on motorised broomsticks, children being turned into frogs, ghosts, beheading, madness, murder and mayhem – it seems that Macbeth is the order of the day! We’d like to say an especially big well done to Selwood School in Frome’s Yr 5 group who not only worked really hard to produce Macbeth for their peers in the afternoon, but also showed their play twice in the evening as part of Selwood Thou Art, the schools Shakespeare evening as part of the Frome Festival. The hardworking, conscientious pupils were an absolute joy to work with and really pulled it off giving two excellent performances for very appreciate audiences. Well done!
We’re looking forward to our last week in school next week and to our projects in the summer holidays. If you would like to enquire about our Play in a Day or drama workshops for the new schools year, do get in touch soon as we are getting booked up!
 Drama with Early Years Drama with this age group when done properly can build confidence, develop speaking and listening skills, encourage positive group interaction and increase the child’s self-awareness as part of their social circle.
Drama work should be kept simple and tend towards being a natural extension of their play. It works well being structured around
activities which are already part of this age groups development such as play and role play; games such as follow-my-leader; songs and action rhymes and mime and movement activities.
Spend several sessions just on games and simple exercises to establish boundaries and modes of behaviour before moving on to anything more complex.
Drama Games and Exercises:
If you want to build confidence follow-my-leader and copying games and exercises are great.
To develop gross motor skills and teach children how to manage their arms and hands, clapping games can help improve rhythm and if words are used as well as clapping it can improve their speech and memory skills. Simple rhymes such a Pat-a Cake can be used.
For improving fine motor skills throwing and catching games are excellent. With these age groups beanbags work best, get them to throw a beanbag in the air, turn around, and catch it again. Work up to throwing the beanbag in the air, clapping then catching. You can also use it as an icebreaker, getting them to throw the beanbag across a circle while saying the name of the person they are throwing it to.
Use a stimulus – nursery rhymes, songs, stories, music, pictures, sounds, all work well.
This week we have mainly been thinking about the issue of Friendship. Here are some games that you can play with your KS 1 or 2 classes:
 Friendship Games Musical Friends
A friendly version of musical chairs – and everyone wins! Play musical chairs as usual, but when the music stops, instead of taking away a chair and getting a child has to sit out, just take away a chair. By the end of the game, the whole class has to cooperate to fit everyone on one chair. Children love this game!
I like friends who……
Arrange the class in a circle. One after the other they say “I like friends who…” then give their answer. On the first round they are allowed repetitions. One the second go they all have to say something different. On the third go they have to add an action to go with their statement.
I’m Your Friend
The pupils sit together on the floor. One pupil sits in a chair with their back to the group, eyes should closed and their hands covering eyes. The facilitator/teacher points at one of the group and that person tiptoes up to the chair, taps the child sitting in it on the back, and in a disguised or funny voice says, “Do you know me? I’m your friend.” The mystery child then rejoins the group and the guessing begins! The child in the chair uncovers his/her eyes,turns around, and tries to guess the name of the friend who tapped and talked. After three guesses, a new child takes the chair and gets a turn.
Human Knot
Form groups – this works best with groups of 6 to 10 members. They stand shoulder-to-shoulder in a circle, facing each other. The first group member reach across the circle with one hand and take the hand of another group member (not be the person next to them). That person then takes someone else’s hand and so on until they are all holding hands.
Ask them to try and untangle the human knot! They can duck under each other’s arms, squat down while someone steps over their arm. Get them to move slowly, one person at a time. Ask them to talk to each other and work together. Some members may end up facing outward instead of inward and that is allowed. Try it a second time and see if they can untangle faster than the first.
This is great for teaching them to work together as a team.
Guess Who?
The teacher/facilitator begins by describing one of the children in the class. When the children think they know who has been described, they raise their hands. The teacher selects someone, who makes a guess. If the child guesses correctly, he or she will get to describe the next person. The easy version of this game is to just describe the person’s clothes, the harder version is to just describe positively what they are good at and all the things you like about this person.
We hope our drama games are useful for you, if you would like us to come and do a friendship drama day for your school, please get in touch.
“Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.”
Albert Einstein
Role play – being able to become someone or something else comes quite naturally to most children from an early age. It is a vital activity for children, stimulating their imagination and enhancing their social development – encouraging friendship through cooperation, listening and turn taking. It can improve their language and movement skills and can help them to understand different points of view, go into the future or the past, and travel anywhere in the world and beyond. Through role play we can explore moral issues and problems safely.
Literacy, numeracy and other curriculum activities can all be planned as part of a role play situation. Here is an idea to get you started.
 Shops
Children do love playing shop so why not use that to your advantage? There are endless varieties of shop that can be explored and utilised to encompass any aspects of the curriculum. One of the most obvious ways is using the shops to teach about money, but why stop there? Why not have a garden shop in the spring term where the children can design seed packets, make paper flowers to sell, as well as discussing safety issues in a garden? A beach shop in the summer to link into work about the sea, where you can design postcards, think up new and wonderful ice creams, count shells, think about how and why wet sand is better than dry sand when making sandcastles.
Do contact us if you would like any more information or ideas on how to use role play with your class or if you would like us to come in and run a drama workshop.
 Forum Theatre We often talk about forum theatre and its benefits but have realised that others may not have our knowledge of this theatre strategy, so here is a short explanation of what forum theatre is. Forum theatre was created by the innovative and influential practitioner Augusto Boal as part of his “Theatre of the Oppressed.” Originally the technique was developed by Boal as a tool for political change but since then it has been widely adapted and used in educational contexts.
A scene is shown, usually containing some kind of oppression, for example Act On Info would show a scene during an anti-bullying drama or smoking prevention workshop showing someone being bullied or pressured by their peers. We would show this scene twice. During the replay, with younger pupils, we ask them to put up their hands when they see behaviour that they do not like, or if they see something they would not like to happen to them and the facilitator would shout stop. With older pupils they can shout stop themselves. The actors freeze at this point, we describe it like pressing pause on a DVD. We use these freezes to take a deeper look at what is going on in the scene, the facial expressions, body language and emotions of the characters in the scene.
The facilitator would then ask for suggestions as to how the pupils would change the characters behaviour, and invite the pupils to take the role of the characters to see how effective their suggestions are. Different suggestions can be tried out by different pupils showing how they could change the situation to create a different outcome. This way of working breaks down barriers between the pupils and the situation – it puts them in the action. It is a great tool to enable pupils to try out different courses of actions in a safe environment that they can then apply to their own lives.
Good health is important for our children as it can improve behaviour, energy levels, concentration, attendance, academic ability, strength, growth and emotional health and impact on a child’s long term future and personal life. Drama can be a really meaningful way of exploring many issues and topics around health and wellbeing. Through role play, improvisation and rehearsing in safe environment children can learn how to keep themselves safe and healthy in real life.
If you are not sure how to work creatively with your children around topics, here are some drama techniques which can help:
Hot Seating
 This is when a character is questioned by the rest of the group about their background, the reasons for their behaviour and their motivation. This method can be used for exploring why a character was behaving the way they were – for example, try hot seating after asking the class to improvise plays around bullying. Hot seat the bully, the victim and the bystander and this will allow the class to develop a deeper understanding of the emotions and motivations of each character as well as developing their questioning skills.
Conscience Alley (Also known as Thought Tunnel or Decision Alley)
This is a very useful technique for exploring a dilemma faced by a character. Get the class to form two lines facing each other. The character with the dilemma walks between the lines and each member of the group gives their advice as they go past. When the character reaches the end of the alley they make their decision.
This technique can easily be applied to a number of PSHE subjects whenever a character is faced with a decision. For example you could use this technique when delivering a lesson on peer pressure. If the character is faced with a difficult decision as to whether they should go along with their friends even if they know what they are being asked to do is wrong, get them to walk down conscience alley for some advice.
If you don’t feel confident about using these methods, get in touch with us and we can help you to implement creative ways of working into your PSHE lessons, or if you’d like us to do it for you take a look at our drama workshops page.
‘If you deprive children of shelter and kindness and food and drink and exercise, they die visibly, whereas if you deprive them of art and music and story and theatre, they perish on the inside, and their starvation doesn’t show.’ Phillip Pullman, Author
For healthy development children need to imagine and actively pretend. Dramatic play and later drama, is necessary to learning about themselves, their peers, their society, the world and their place in it. Many teachers are afraid of using drama or working creatively within the classroom but hopefully we here at Act On Info can help.
 Victorian Cotton Mill One way to engage creatively is to use stimuli such as paintings and photographs. For example when working with KS2 children on the Victorians find a picture of a cotton mill, such as the one on the left. Ask the children to imagine they are in the picture and closing their eyes and using one sense at a time ask them what they can see, hear, smell, taste and touch. Then ask them to say what they can sense, for example – “I can hear the loud noise of the machines”. Gradually move on to get them to imagine they are one of the characters in the picture, ask them to say which character they are and give some extra information – “I am the lady working the loom, my back hurts.” From here you can ask them to create extra characters and create their own tableau (frozen picture). This is a good time to use thought tracking where whilst frozen the characters tell us what they are thinking.
Don’t be afraid to experiment and try new ways of creative working with your class, they will really enjoy it and it will bring things to life for them in a way that traditional classroom teaching can’t, of course if you really feel like you can’t do this without some help, and would like us to come in and run a drama workshop get in touch using the quick enquiry form to the right.
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Friday, May 18, 10:42 am
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Poems
