 We always love working on Shakespeare with young people and have been delivering drama workshops and Play in a Day to get children excited about his plays across the country.
With this in mind we are really looking forward to the World Shakespeare Festival (WSF) which starts on 23rd April and runs to November 2012. It will be a celebration of Shakespeare, produced by the Royal Shakespeare Company, in collaboration with leading UK and international arts organisations.
Artists from around the world will take part in 70 productions, as well as events and exhibitions, right across the UK. This festival forms part of London 2012 Festival, which is the culmination of the Cultural Olympiad.
We have used the Whoosh technique in schools in our Shakespeare drama workshops; it works really well and can be utilized easily by teachers. This technique was devised by Dr Joe Winston of The University of Warwick and is used regularly by the Royal Shakespeare Company.
Whoosh!
Get the group into a circle, either standing or sitting. Tell the group that everyone will have a chance to participate in the telling of a story, Shakespeare or otherwise, by becoming a character or an object in the tale. The rule is that when you say “Whoosh!” they must immediately return to their place in the circle. Start the story and when a key character, event or object is mentioned, indicate to a pupil to step into the circle to make a shape or strike a pose. If more than one character is introduced, indicate they can all enter the circle at the same time.
As the story progresses and more characters or objects are introduced, make sure you move around the circle so that all the pupils are given a chance to take part. If it’s appropriate the whole group can take part at once. Continue telling the story with more pupils stepping in as required – in the first instance they are just striking poses to build up a tableau or frozen picture.
Once the pupils have made a still image, and are feeling more confident, then they can start to add movement to the story. You can build this up to them interacting with one another, and adding improvised dialogue or lines from the play. If you feel the group is able, you can add props for pupils to improvise with.
At any time if the activity inside the circle becomes too unfocused or too boisterous simply say “Whoosh!” and everyone returns to their original place in the circle. The story continues to be told to the end. “Whoosh!” is a very useful tool and can be used as many times as you feel is necessary.
Do get in touch if you would like us to deliver a Shakespeare drama workshop or Play in a Day in your school.
Well, we are back in school with a vengeance, covering everything from Fairytales to Volcanoes, with Ancient Egypt and Ancient Greeks thrown in there for good measure.
The Ancient Greeks brought us a lot of things including drama for which we are very thankful, but they also brought us the Olympics, which in case you haven’t noticed is happening this summer in our capital city of London!
We know a lot of schools are studying topics on the Olympics next term and with this is mind we have some exciting Play in a Day around this theme.
The Ancient Greeks – Athena and Ares are fighting again, and Poseidon is raising a storm. Our Olympic athletes compete and Athens and Sparta fight to reign supreme. Watch out for thunderbolts!
The Olympics – where did it all begin? Travel back in time with us to Mount Olympus, find out how and why it all began, what games were involved and how did it develop into the games we have today.
Olympic Values – The values that top class athletes believe in are friendship, respect, and excellence. In this Play in a Day we explore what these values mean to the children and what they mean to the athletes competing in the Olympics.
We are currently taking bookings for our Olympic Plays for next term, so get in touch now. For more details go to our Play in a Day page.
Don’t forget we also have a number of other Play in a Day for KS2 and for KS3 covering all aspects of the national curriculum.
 We are winding down here as we have just done our last day in school in 2011!
This term we have had a fantastic time doing Road Safety Workshops, our KS1 show showing how toys Fairy Princess Buttercup, Captain Fearless and Sheriff Howdeedoodee find their way home safely across the road after being left behind in the park. Our KS2 Road Safety Show is based around a game show – Don’t Get Splatted, and is a fast paced, fun interactive experience for the children to learn some serious messages and has been greatly recieved in schools across the Northwest.
Our Kingdom of Respect Drama Days took place up and down the country, and we have seen some fantastically creative work from pupils. We have had drama plays, stories being acted out, raps, national anthems, and amazing Kingdoms including – Kindland, the Territory of Tolerance, Respect-alot amongst others, well done everyone for all your hard work!
We have also completed our tour of primary schools as part of the Powerdown Fortnight in Peterborough, our fantastic team of actors doing numerous whole school assemblies and class workshops about saving energy with the message to – Switch Off and Save! We had fantastic fun being futuristic in the year 2031, where everything is silver and time machines can be made by your grandad in the shed! The pupils also came up with some fantastic adverts encouraging other children to Switch Off and Save, setting their adverts on a volcano, in a light bulb and even in a toilet! Watch out for some photos of this show coming in the next few weeks.
All this as well as various Play in a Days and Drama Workshops around varied topics such as Space, King Arthur, Robin Hood, Shakespeare, Telling The Truth, Ancient Greeks and Literacy projects. Phew! We are looking forward to having a break over Christmas but we are always here to take enquiries about bookings for next year. We are already getting booked up for summer term doing various Play in a Days and drama workshops around Ancient Greeks and Olympic values, so get in touch now.
 Feedback from a Yr 3 class.
Half way through November already, how did that happen!? This week is anti-bullying week and we are already enjoying our time in schools, offering forum theatre workshops and Kingdom of Respect drama days. Our tour rehearsals are nearly complete for our Switch Off and Save energy efficiency tour as part of Powerdown Fortnight for Peterborough City Council.
But we are also looking forward to Christmas! If you haven’t thought about what you are doing with your classes for a Christmas treat don’t forget we can provide you with a Panto in a Day – oh yes we can!
Our director (He’s behind you!) works with your class for the whole day to create a 15 minute Panto that can be showed to the rest of the school and any audience you choose to invite at the end of the day. It a great, fun treat for the children with all the educational benefits of a Play in a Day.
 - Oh yes we can!
Pantomimes available:
Aladdin
Cinderella
Dick Whittington
Snow White
Peter Pan
Wizard of Oz
We also have our own version of A Christmas Carol available as a Play in a Day so get in touch today to make your pupils Christmas!
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.
 - 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!
“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.
 Spring has Sprung! With tighter school budgets than ever Act On Info Theatre Company would like to offer your school an exclusive offer on a block booking of four drama workshops that you can use anytime throughout the new financial year. Our offer includes Play in a Day, our Topic Based Drama Days or General Drama Workshops.
Play in a Day is a great way to introduce or conclude a topic, to promote inclusion and help with revision. Act On Info start work with a class at the beginning of the day and at the end of the day the class perform a 10-15 minute play in front of the rest of the school and parents. We offer a number of Play in a Day’s around different subjects.
Topic Based Drama Days are based around a topic of your choice including History, PSHE, Literacy and Science. This drama workshop brings the topic to life and is a great way to get your pupils engaged with the subject. This workshop is either one hour long with four workshops within one school day or we can spend a half day with two classes.
Our General Drama Workshop includes drama games and exercises, creative play, songs and basic rhythm exercises. Staff can gain from the workshop examples of how to engage with their pupils creatively as well as how to link creative work with different areas of the curriculum. This workshop is either one hour long and we can do four workshops within one school day or we can spend a half day with two classes.
All our workshops are designed to enhance language skills, build confidence and encourage team work and creativity. We are quite flexible in terms of how you can use your four drama days.
Example 1: Book a literacy topic based drama workshop for World Book Day, a bullying Play in a Day for anti-bullying week, a general drama workshop for anytime within the year and a Pantomime in a Day For Christmas.
Example 2: Book a WW2 Play in a Day for KS2, a Tudors Topic Based Drama Day for KS2, an Aesop’s Fables Play in a Day for KS1, and a General Drama Day for KS1.
Generally Act On info charge £280 a day for these workshops, but we are currently offering you the chance to purchase four days of workshops for the cut price of £1000*. Please see our website or get in touch if you would like more information or would like to make a booking.
*Travel costs may be additional dependent on if we have a facilitator in your area, we will always make you aware of this at the time of booking.
 The Orange prize long list has been announced and out of the 20 books there are nine debut novelists on the list.
The prize was created to celebrate “excellence, originality and accessibility in women’s writing throughout the world”, and is now in its 16th year. It seems there is no shortage of aspiring writers out there. So why is it that whilst in a primary school recently I heard the pupils of one Yr 5 class take the news that they would be doing literacy in the afternoon as if the teacher had said all the Xbox’s on the planet had exploded? It’s important that we bring literacy to life for students, and as we all know, particularly with boys one great way of stimulating them is a bit of healthy competition. There are some great competitions for pupils running at the moment that will inspire enthusiasm instead of dread:
The Imperial War Museums Once upon a Wartime competition is open to 11-14 year old students. Get your students writing book reviews this week and submit them to this competition – open until 25th March.
The Foyle Young Poets of the Year competition for 11-17 year olds will be judged by Imtiaz Dharker and Glyn Maxwell and closes on 31st July. Teachers can send in whole class sets of entries.
As part of their ongoing work to support schools, the National Literacy Trust in partnership with the WWE® are running the Voice it! competition. To help develop pupils’ speaking and communication skills they are asking students to submit a film of themselves saying why they feel passionate about a certain topic. The prize is a trip to a WWE® UK event!
If you would like to bring literacy to life for your pupils and inspire them to do more reading and writing, a great way to do this is to ask us here at Act On Info to come into your school and do a drama workshop or Play in a Day. We have a number of drama workshops for schools based around traditional tales, Shakespeare, myths and legends and much more which can help to improve speaking, listening and communication skills for your KS1 and 2 children as well as inspiring imaginations and enhancing creativity. For more details do get in touch using our quick enquiry form to the right.
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Sunday, February 5, 7:10 am
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We always love working on Shakespeare with young people and have been delivering drama workshops and Play in a Day to get children excited about his plays across the country.
