 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.
 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!
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!
We can’t believe its half term already! Where has the time gone? We have spent it in schools doing drama workshops and assemblies on everything from Space Exploration to Telling the Truth, with various characters from Harry Potter to King Arthur!
Half term is a fantastic time for us to take a big deep breath and prepare for anti-bullying week in November. This year we will be delivering drama workshops in schools in many different guises. We have anti-bullying and resisting peer pressure forum theatre workshops, Kingdom of Respect Days and Play in a Day’s happening in primary and high schools across the country. Also we are really looking forward to our work in Peterborough Schools on their fantastic Powerdown fortnight project, with the slogan “Switch Off and Save”. This project is all about increasing pupils and staffs energy awareness and we will be providing a whole school assemblies and drama workshops for schools in the Peterborough area. This is a vitally important issue as schools account for a large proportion of a local council’s carbon emissions, we need to educate future generations into caring about environmental issues and making them see that by everyone doing a little it can make a big difference.
We are now taking bookings for next term – and as well as our existing drama workshops we are further developing our History Drama Days and also promoting reading and writing in schools through our Literacy Drama Workshops. Have a look at the website and do get in touch if you think we can help your school. We look forward to meeting you!
We have been working very hard now that term is well and truly underway and have been having a great time in schools on our new projects.
 - Book your drama workshop now!
The enquiries for this November’s anti-bullying week are coming in thick and fast, and already we are scratching our heads wondering how we are going to accommodate all the schools out there that want our anti-bullying drama workshops!
With this in mind for all you people out there who leave it to the last minute to book things as you already have mountains of work on your plate we thought we’d put together some dates for you for this and next year so you can keep on top of when to book us.
Book Now!
Monday 14th – Friday 18th November – Anti-Bullying Week
We have a range of anti-bullying drama workshops for KS 1, 2 and 3 to take advantage of. From our forum theatre workshops, to our Kingdom of Respect Drama Day to our Anti-Bullying Play in a Day, we are sure we have something which can fulfil your needs for this year’s programme of events.
October 31st – Halloween
We have a spooky and creepy Halloween Play in a Day looking at the origins of this traditional holiday for KS2.
November 5th – Bonfire Night
For KS1 we have a history drama day recreating the events of that eventful night back in 1605. We also have a Guy Fawkes Play in a Day for KS2 as a great way to get the older children involved in teaching the younger ones all about the origins of bonfire night.
Christmas
We have Play in a Day’s version of “A Christmas Carol” and our very special Panto in a Day – Oh yes we can!!!
Sat 28th Jan – Sat 4th Feb - The 12th Annual National Storytelling Week
Have a look at our Bring Your Story to Life drama workshop which does exactly what it says on the tin. You choose a story, or we can suggest one and we bring it to life with the pupils using drama games and techniques. A really great way to make reading and writing exciting for your pupils.
Thursday 1st March 2012 – World Book Day
Have a look at our new literacy section under Primary Schools we have a number of drama workshops to bring literacy for life for your
pupils.
March/ April –Shakespeare revision workshops
Check out our Shakespeare drama workshops, a great tool in the revision for SATs to bring what can be a difficult subject to life for your
pupils.
14th March – No Smoking Day
Have a look at our Smoking Prevention Workshops for KS2 and KS3, a perfect time to put across some important health messages to your pupils about the choices and consequences surrounding smoking.
April 7th - World Health Day
We have a number of drama workshops and health and wellbeing; have a look at our PSHE page to pick which workshop is best for you to put across important health messages to your pupils.
 Working hard on the website! Hi there,
Welcome back to the new school year! Hopefully you’ve had as much of a productive few weeks as we have. We have been developing many new drama workshops and assemblies in response to demand and are very happy to be back in schools to see how well they work!
Some of you may have noticed that our website has changed quite a bit and is still in the process of changing even more! We are attempting to make it much more user friendly for people and to better reflect what we can offer in terms of drama workshops.
This is a long process for us though, and we are now frantically editing the website (which is not our strongest skill!) in between dealing with the beginning of term rush of bookings and shows, but we are hoping it will be done and up and running as soon as possible!
If you are a high school please don’t think we have stopped doing high school shows as we just haven’t got round to adding that bit of the website! Get in touch if you have any queries about what shows we do offer.
We look forward to working with you this year!
Alison and Helen x
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!
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