Here at Dramatis, we harness the power of Pretend Play to help children develop emotional and social life skills.
We usually do this during our weekly classes and holiday workshops but we also offer FREE one-hour drama workshops to schools and youth organisations in the local area.
Last month, we were excited to partner with Bishop Tuffnell CE Primary School in Bognor Regis, to run workshops for their Year 3, Year 4 and Year 6 class groups.
Our School Workshops use drama games and exercises to bring educational topics to life in a fun and engaging way. Bishop Tuffnell’s Head of History, Charlotte Richardson, was keen to find a creative way to introduce pupils to the historical topics they were studying this term.
We therefore tailored our usual workshop plans to incorporate their topics. As with our classes, all our workshops include an Icebreaker Game, a Drama Exercise (focused on learning about a specific skill) and finally a Devised Scene (in which children are given 3 stimuli to create their own totally unique scene).
During our Year 3 workshop, we explored the Romans. For our Icebreaker Game we played ‘Legionnaire Shuffle’ where children were given a role in the Roman Army (Medicus, Centurion or Legionnaire) and had to run to their bases as their roles were called out.
The children did a brilliant job and we were particularly taken by the way they really entered into their roles coming up with their own take on what life would have been like in the Barracks and inventing their own ways of training (such as weight lifting rocks!)
Our Year 4 workshop, focused on the Egyptians. Our Drama Exercise focused on Tableaux (“living pictures”). Children created different Tableaux’s depicting key moments to the lead up of Harold Carter discovering Tutankhamun’s tomb (from his arrival in Egypt and 5 years of excavating, to the rumours that started circulating and the eventual discovery).
It was wonderful to see the Year 4’s embrace the workshop and their excitement when taking on the role of excavators and archaeologists!
In our Year 6 workshop, we turned our attentions to WW2. For their Devised Scene pupils were given a setting (and told they were part of a small family in Arras the night before a suspected German invasion). They were told to include in their scene a plan for what they are going to do (would they hide, fight, run away or wait and see what fate had in store for them?). Pupils were also told they needed to end their scene with the line “Let’s go to bed and talk about it in the morning”.
The Year 6 devised scenes were particularly poignant and it was beautiful to watch their responses to the stimuli.
We had some lovely feedback from both pupils and teachers including:
“It was really fun, I liked making up stories about being in the army and talking tactics“
Jessie (Year 3 pupil)
“I learnt who discovered the tomb, I didn’t know they searched for 5 years”
Lukas (Year 4 pupil)
“I really felt like I was there. I was a shoe maker and I could imagine what it was like to not have any business”
Toby (Year 6 pupil)
“It is so nice to have the opportunity to do this. The children don’t get a lot of time to just be freely creative like this”.
Year 6 Teacher
“We were so impressed with Suzanna in our History drama sessions at Bishop Tufnell Primary School. She really helped to bring the Romans and Egyptians alive for Year 3 and 4 children , and to help our year 6s empathise with people in a WW2 aid raid. Children loved the opportunity for active learning and enjoyed becoming the historical figures they had been learning about. We are really grateful to Suzanna for introducing a new, creative way to bring History alive for our children.”
Mrs Richardson, Year 5 Year Group Representative
A few photos of the Workshops can be seen below. If you’re a teacher keen to add a creative activity to your lessons which will help bring your curriculum to life, take a look at our SCHOOL WORKSHOP page or get in touch with us on info@dramatis.co.uk.
