Dramatic activity is already a natural part of most children’s lives before they start school in the form of make-believe play, enabling them to make sense of their own identity by exploring meaningful fictional situations that have parallels in the real world. This can be utilised at school through structured play and drama to encourage pupils to learn actively and interactively throughout the primary years and across the curriculum. Children like to move and to interact with others. In drama we ask them to do exactly this. Rather than sitting still and listening they are encouraged to move, speak and respond to one another. Most importantly, drama activities are fun – making learning both enjoyable and memorable.

Drama gives children opportunities to explore, discuss and deal with difficult issues and express their emotions in a supportive environment. It enables them to explore their own cultural values and those of others, past and present. It encourages them to think and act creatively, thus developing critical thinking and problem-solving skills that can be applied in all areas of learning. Through drama, children are encouraged to take responsible roles and make choices – to participate in and guide their own learning and importantly, to work as part of a team.

Drama is used as a tool for children to engage actively with the curriculum, within a thematic, cross curricular approach to learning. At Calstock and Stoke Climsland school children who find reading and writing difficult tend to respond more positively to the imaginative and multisensory learning offered by drama. We aim to use drama to develop all Literacy skills, including speaking and listening, encouraging children to understand and express points of view, motivating them to write for a range of purposes. This in turn helps all learners to develop meaningful vocabulary, creativity, enquiry skills, empathy, self- confidence, cooperation, leadership and negotiation strategies, thus encompassing our core school values.

Drama is very much an integral part of the English curriculum and work on books, scripts and plays forms part of our literacy learning. We encourage pupils to:

Develop characters through movement, use of voice and facial expressions, dialogue and interaction with other characters
Use space and grouping, props and different ways to adapt to an audience
Create dramatic effects through music, lighting, sounds, costume, make-up and scenery
Develop understanding of how to act out plots, dramatising the problem and resolution
Provide opportunities for rehearsing, polishing and presenting plays for performance with focus in a unit of work to build both children’s skills in drama, work in role and evaluation
Vary the techniques used so that children develop a repertoire and make progress in performance, working in role and evaluation
Establish ground rules for drama sessions so that children have a clear framework within which to create roles, explore movement or develop scenarios.