We regard Drama as an important part of the children’s experience at school – it provides an opportunity for creative expression and the discovery of skills that they didn’t know they had.
Through drama lessons taught from years 3 – 6 the children learn to:
- Develop social and interpersonal skills
- Accept constructive criticism
- Build social skills with other children to complete performances
- Be more confident about public speaking
- Boost self esteem
- Develop tolerance and empathy
Drama lessons take place once a week, the musical, theatrical, and social skills learnt in these lessons are culminated in a glittering Entertainment Evening that each year group performs. The evening can showcase a variety of talents through poetry recitals, songs, dance, drama sketches and short plays.
Each class also produces a special assembly for parents once a year. The children have another opportunity to showcase their skills by performing in our weekly Friday Factor assembly. This is a very special platform open to every child in the school to sing, dance, juggle, play instruments, mime etc. The children become the stars and perform in front of the rest of the school.
As much as possible, we strive to link drama lessons to the topics and themes that the children are studying in other subjects, or to tackle important social questions and dilemmas. Through this, drama is used to promote active learning in any subject to give students a kinaesthetic, empathetic and intellectual understanding of a topic, as well as expanding their abilities to work collaboratively. In this way drama accomplishes several goals at once; enriching students’ school experience through the arts as well as reinforcing traditional academics and social skills.
As a result of the learning through drama in years 3-5, the Year 6 production is a culmination of all the years of exploration and discovery, where the whole year group takes to the stage to perform a musical play over a two-night run. They experience involvement in staging a proper production, from lighting to makeup, songs and dances; resulting in something that resembles a West End Show!