 Watch out for brussel sprouts! What an amazing week we had in schools during anti-bullying week last week and thanks to all the pupils, teachers and facilitators who worked so hard to make the days a success. Our Kingdom of Respect drama days were and still are being held in primary schools up and down the country.
We thought it would be nice to share with you some of the excellent work that has been created by the pupils.Some of the Kingdoms created by St Peters Primary School in Bolton included Yr 6′s Respecterton S.P whereby everybody had to earn respect points by behaving according to the rules. We had a national anthem played on brass instruments, a Peace in the World rap/dance and the Kingdom included all kinds of interesting places including the jail where if you didn’t respect people you were force fed brussel sprouts and broccoli and made to sit on the uncomfortable chair – the horror!
From Year 5 we had the imaginative Bullyneverland where the French professor, Professor Bulliance made three robots – Cyber, Physical
 Respect today - keep the robots at bay! andCyber, Physical and Verbal RobotsVerbal Robots -to keep the bullies in check, the robots would freeze anybody who was bullying and their slogan was - “Respect today, keep the robots at bay!”
 Only the brightest stars.... We also had from Year 3 the fabulous –Starworld “Only the brightest stars shine in Starworld.”
 The tree of flags  Yr 2's amazing Kingdom From Year 4 the fabulous Kingdom of Care and Share.
From Year 2 Rainbow Kingdom where “Niceness is Priceless”
Yr 1 told us to “Keep in mind, always be kind”.
Not to be outdone the reception class came up with Chameleon Kingdom where everyone is different and that’s ok. Reception showed us their skills on the computer by making pictures of their friends!
 Receptions friendly faces  Thanks St Peter's! Thanks, St Peters for making us have such a rianbow coloured and robot shaped week, for making us so welcome and joining in the spirit of the Drama Days so beautifully. Keep your eyes peeled for more school photos later in the week!
 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!
 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.
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.
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Friday, May 18, 11:24 am
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