Thatto Heath Primary School

At Thatto Heath Primary School, drama is considered a very powerful medium to develop confidence, self esteem, speaking and listening and to accelerate learning for all children.  The use of drama across the curriculum has proven to be an excellent vehicle for developing storytelling and writing skills at Key Stages 1 and 2.  Speaking, listening and writing are identified priorities within the School’s Improvement Plan and drama provides many creative additional opportunities to embed a whole school approach to speaking and listening.  This is an ongoing long term objective.

Among the many projects and strategies used across the curriculum, Year 2 children began a six week storytelling and writing project during the summer of 2006.  The project was designed to further improve the writing of highly achieving children and engage those identified who were at risk of underachieving.  Children were identified who had demonstrated the ability to lead and develop improvisation in small groups, expressing character through gesture, facial expression and who were also outstanding in their use of appropriate language in role. The intended learning outcomes for the project were to develop characterisation through drama, leading to original and interesting story telling that would engage the listener and, at a later stage, impact on the quality of writing.  At the end of the project children were expected to:

a)      Produce a unique version of a traditional tale; taking the original as a starting point and building up a complete picture of each character.  As an interpretation of a traditional tale, their stories would provide alternative settings, events and  unusual endings. 

b)      To review and select two of the stories to be performed in the outdoor theatre located in the playground to a large audience of children, parents and families. 

In preparation for the work, the targeted groups were able to make use of a range of dramatic techniques and activities to be used as part of the project.  These had been incorporated into literacy lessons during the academic year following specialist training for teaching and learning support staff.  The techniques and activities included:

·     

   Character Lists: these were used to enable children to work from artefacts rather than words, identify key aspects of character behaviour and to generate concrete abstract ideas.  Children made lists of objects (props) and costumes a character might wear, they also reflected on what sort of person the character was by interpreting how they might use or wear them.   

·        Character statements: Children considered what the character might think in a chosen situation and created written statements at different points within the story.  Character statements support the development of detailed narrative, also the extension of speech within a story. 

·        Hot Seating:  The character was placed in a ‘Hot Seat’ to answer questions about an object on the character list in order to gain greater insight and have fun.

·        Freeze Framing:  Children took up ‘frozen’ positions in a chosen situation.  They thought about how the character might feel and react.  Freeze Framing assisted our focus on minor details, expression and supported the structuring of the final presentation.

·        Role on the wall: To support those children lacking in confidence a silhouette cut out of a character from the chosen story was the focus for a small group to build a picture of the character in words and pictures.  Whole class discussion followed. 

·        Tableau: Children took up start and end positions to build an understanding of how formal presentation can create atmosphere

·        Thought bubbles: To represent what the character might be thinking (not speaking) and assist in learning to read between the lines, character motivation etc.

The structure of the teaching sessions involved a drama teacher working in role to develop improvisations, he was supported by the class teacher and Learning Assistant.  The theme was planned with explicit learning objectives from QCA materials; Speaking, Listening and Learning, the Renewed Framework for Literacy in addition to the statutory requirements for drama.  The structure involved planning for an initial input, development and extension.  Part of a planning schedule is provided below.

Each weekly session began with short storytelling opening to model the process, language conventions and expression.   The sessions at the start of the week involved a structured approach using an exciting initial start by the drama teacher, making use of powerful descriptive language, sustained dialogue in role with lead pupils, use of artefacts and a range of questioning. The initial start was followed through by class teachers during literacy lessons to develop high quality improvisations into narrative writing.  As a result of teachers’ skilful interventions, drama transformed the quality of children’s storytelling and also made a significant impact on children’s story writing.  The boys who had been identified as gifted and talented in drama were outstanding in presenting their ideas at each stage to shape the process.  On the day of the performances they confidently directed others and the Year 2 narrator for one play was so much in role that he completely 'ad libbed' changing the dialogue! It really was excellent and the audience was delighted.