“You can’t use up creativity. The more you use the more you have” – Maya Angelou
“You can’t use up creativity. The more you use the more you have”
Drama encourages the opportunity to express yourself through play, learning, activities or specific tasks. It allows and supports creativity and individuality and the children are given a platform to showcase this, whether that is to a small group of peers, a whole class or a performance with an audience. It promotes thinking, use of the imagination and feelings whilst learning more about the world and what makes us all unique.
Currently each week Kaydia the Drama Lead delivers Drama sessions to a variety of children and also a lunchtime workshop once a week. Activities and Drama ideas are then shared with Teachers and staff members to carry out with children in separate sessions.
In each session the children are encouraged to develop Drama and Expressive arts through a variety of activities, task, role play and short performance pieces. At the start of each session, they are involved in warm up exercises, games and activities to help each child to feel relaxed and comfortable with one another in order for them to build on their confidence and also get involved with the different tasks.
So far, they have learnt skills such as character building/confidence/script reading/role play/improvisation and use of expression. This is something that will continue to be promoted and encouraged throughout.
The children also look at familiar stories or plays, the children each vote and choose specific ones that we may focus on for that particular session depending on the task at hand. They then have a lot of fun improvising and giving their own interpretation of the play that they can do alongside peers.
The possibilities are endless, and no matter what obstacles the children are encouraged to develop such skills to the maximum in a caring a fun environment and with sessions tailored to them.
Recently in Drama, some of the children in Fox class took part in a variety of activities such as dramatizing familiar action songs and activities that encourage peer on peer relationships and children participation.
The children were very engaged throughout, smiling happily and vocalising. They each displayed great concentration and joined in with actions by moving their body to a beat. At one part of the session, the children were encouraged to act as though they were rowing a boat for the song “Row the Boat” they all got in a line and using props provided they brought the song to life, using material and water spray for the river and visuals/sound effects for the animals or particular props.
They expressed how much fun they had and all developed their skills further.
Article 23 – Every child with a disability should enjoy the best possible life in society.
Article 31 – Rest, Play, Culture and Arts
The Drama workshop involved the children in Squirrel class taking part in a variety of warm up activities. The current focus is to help each of the children get into character. To maintain facial expressions and to develop confidence by interacting as a whole group in games that may take them out of their comfort zone.
What was great to see, is that some children who are quite shy really pushed themselves and were encouraged to express themselves through body movements or changing the tone and pitch of their voices. One game in particular that the children expressed that they enjoyed was a game that involved being aware of your surroundings and listening to what was happening in the environment whilst doing some detective work by guessing who was the culprit of an act to try and stay in the game. The children had a great time and asked if we could do this particular exercise again.
Article 31- Rest, play, cultural, arts:
Every child has the right to rest, relax, play and to take part in cultural and creative activities.
On site performances:
Some children have had the opportunity to perform with an audience, One in particular was a small piece on ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’ which took place in school, the children were nervous but also very excited to have a small audience of people from around school and also parents come to visit.
Wellacre Academy
The children took part in a performance of ‘Oliver Twist’ which was held at Wellacre School, the children found it exciting and rewarding being able to perform on stage with an audience and family/friends being able to see. To each of the children this was a great experience, it helped many of them develop with their confidence the difference the children made from our very first workshop was immense. They also was able to show off their learnt skills, we are very appreciative to Wellacre that we were given the opportunity for this to happen
The Edge Theatre
Towards the end of the last academic year some children in key stage 2 were given a fantastic experience to perform in a theatre. The Edge Theatre and Arts centre were very welcoming and helpful with any request made and also to ensure the performance went smoothly. The staff were very accommodating. We especially cannot thank the learning director Charlie enough, he was great with making the children and staff feel comfortable and familiar with the setting.
The children performed a play called ‘Everybody is special’ This was such a rewarding and memorable experience. Some children cried with joy and gave feedback and shared how happy they felt and parents expressed how touched they were to see this.
Drama not only encourages self confidence but so much more such as individuality, learning/reading scripts, role play, acting, working with peers, learning to improvise etc. It was fantastic to see the children’s dedication as many of them took their scripts home to memorise, they expressed how happy they were to perform at the theatre and we are beyond proud.
Well done to everyone involved and the biggest well done to our amazing children, this will be a memory we will never forget!
