We have recently received some very exciting post, which left the whole team sporting a Cheshire Cat’s grin! The lovely Year 6 children from Clarendon Junior School have sent us handwritten letters, giving us their feedback on our workshop with them in March.

Our History Explorer workshops engage the children’s imagination and use a combination of drama techniques, exercises and games to explore historical events in an immersive way.

Sounds fun, right? Find out a more about what you can expect from these workshops here.

To celebrate Lunar New Year we spoke with Liz Chi Yen Liew, composer of our Chinese Zodiac Dance Workshop based on The Great Race.

Here she demonstrates how the instruments are used in the music, and speaks about her inspiration and approach when composing the piece.

A few years ago we were lucky enough to work with John Nicholson of Peepolykus theatre company: John directed our musical theatre production of Hercules.

John is currently working with composer Alex Rudd to create a song in response to and to help draw attention to the crisis facing our industry. The finished product will be shared on social media - and the demo sounds great!

As schools begin to return we are looking at how we might be able to deliver workshops remotely directly in to schools so that we don’t need to enter class “bubbles”.

Like so many people over the lockdown we’ve become fairly used to talking to friends over Zoom, and as we begin to explore how best to use it for workshops I thought we should share our discoveries publicly.

In real life, there are so many heroes who are being brave and working hard to make good things happen.

This week we are going to introduce you to five real life superheroes from history and tell you a little bit about what makes them so amazing!

There’s plenty of research* showing that drama in the classroom has benefits for the development of language. Role play in particular has been identified as a valuable tool for building vocabulary in younger children. Drama is great for oral literacy and storytelling for when children are at a pre-writing age and for when they are developing their writing skills.

Engage your class, take control and save your voice? Bingo!

In this blog, I’ll describe a handful of activities to help you use your voice more effectively, and even demonstrate ways in which you don’t have to use your voice at all!

World Book Day is nearly upon us and we are looking forward to visiting schools across the country to help celebrate with our dance and drama workshops.

For World Book Day 2020 we are launching a photo competition giving schools the chance to win a free pantomime for their children in December 2020!*

Exactly as its name states, a brain break is a break from using your brain. It’s a short blast of light physical activity completely unrelated to the task at hand. Just like working out in the gym we need a break every now and then. Students, young and old, often need a chance to reset and refocus.

Creative classroom management doesn’t have to be obvious, colourful, tangible like yet another sticker chart. Putting your imagination into the smaller habits and routines of daily classroom life can help you heaps in achieving some decorum in your classroom…

When you’ve got an empty hall and plenty of space to move around, ideas for a drama lesson are endless. But what happens when you want to introduce drama activities into your normal class time?

This was a question that came up in discussion during our last CPD event in the autumn. As a group we shared our thoughts and ideas for getting creative when you’re in amongst desks and chairs. And here are some of our creative teams’ top tips: 

Happy New Year! I hope you’ve had a good start to the new school term - mince pies and wrapping gifts already feels like a distant memory doesn’t it? But as one good thing comes to an end an equally exciting one steps into its place. There’s plenty to be looking forward to this spring. For example… 

Here’s the final two movement activities in this blog series to get the maths in your classroom moving! These are two of my personal favourites (best ‘til last) so I hope you enjoy them, too!

Punctuation just got a whole lot more interesting. Kung Fu Punctuation is a phenomenon that has reached schools worldwide, and is proving highly successful in children’s understanding and use of punctuation. Once learned, fun instructional games and competitions can be played to reinforce the sounds and actions - and in turn, the shapes and names of punctuation symbols. And of course it makes comprehension exercises so much more entertaining for all!

Did you enjoy the previous Math and Movement blog entry? Looking for ADDITIONAL activities GREATER THAN the ones before? Read on to find out more - MINUS the puns. (I’ll stop.)

Looking for ways to merge maths with movement? Of course you are! Check out our tried and tested activity suggestions to help you get your Maths moving, with a shake, and a shout, and even a bit of a boogie. And don’t miss out on the developments for EYFS, KS1 and KS2.

The Festival of Lights is fast approaching! And we have had the joy of touring schools across the country this month to help primary school children explore one of the most important stories behind Diwali - The Ramayana. An epic tale of good triumphing over evil, it is a story that can be traced back to 500 BCE (that’s a LONG time ago!) and it’s as much loved today as it was back then.

Especially for new teachers, a sense of having a ‘competence crisis’ can take over as you adjust to the fast-paced, high-pressured, demanding world of education. Here are some creative, low to no-prep activities to lift your spirits and keep you smiling through to Christmas and beyond!

When a child opens a poetry book and look at the pages, what do they see? Rarely do they see uniformity. They see words and letters making all different shapes across a page. Some short, some long. Some with rhyme and some without. Some poems even become the illustration of what they are describing.