Primary Drama Curriculum: A possible curriculum for seven to nine-year-olds

Ideally, drama would be taught in primary schools as a subject, while also being used as a medium for teaching other subjects.

Drama and other subjects

Any curriculum for seven to nine-year-olds is going to contain some great subject matter for drama lessons. Drama is based on true or fictitious stories, with engaging characters, situations and/or events, so could be based on novels, narrative poems or picture books such as the Flat Stanley book series or the legend of the Pied Piper of Hamelin. A painting or photograph in an Art class can also become the stimulus for drama. Conversely, a Drama lesson can become a stimulus for the exploration of art. Historical characters and events in can be explored creatively, critically and memorably through drama, with stories like Howard Carter’s discovery of Tutankhamun’s Tomb or the arrival of Vikings brought to life in the classroom.

Subject leaders of Drama could liaise with leaders of other subjects to agree when, where and how drama might be used for the teaching of other subjects.

Drama and English

• Spoken Language: When speaking in role, children are using contextually appropriate vocabulary and register. They are practising adapting their speech for various contexts and audiences.
• Reading: Drama can bring texts alive. The children can meet, embody and observe characters at various points in any narrative. Drama strategies can help children think and talk together – both in and out of role – about poems, traditional tales, myths and legends, picture books and non-fiction texts.
• Writing: Drama stimulates and motivates children as writers. It generates content and provides purposes and audiences for their writing. For instance, they might be in role as newspaper reporters, diarists or letter-writers.

Drama and History

• Enactment: Drama enables teachers and their classes to become physically and memorably involved with historical characters and events.
• Enquiry: Children can talk with and question historical characters and imagine themselves in a shared space together during historical moments and events. This practice can motivate students to find out more and interrogate historical events.
• Evidence: Historically authentic images, artefacts and documents can be brought alive through drama. Children can work in role as archaeologists or museum curators, sometimes with commissioned tasks to complete.
• Chronology: The chronological re-enactment of historical scenes and events can help children remember their order of occurrence.

Drama, PSHE and Relationships Education

Drama enables children to enact, re-enact and reflect on the impact of words, actions and behaviours on themselves and others. They keep safely distanced by working in role. Participation in drama is social and collaborative as it requires co-operation and collaboration. Many picture books have PSHE themes and significant images that can be explored through drama, such as Voices in the Park by Anthony Browne.

What should we be aiming for?

Children’s knowledge, skills and understanding of drama needs to progress. Between the ages of seven and nine years old, they should have opportunities to:

• Improvise and work in role with each other and with adults in role, exploring characters and their differing viewpoints.
• Participate in a range of drama strategies and start to use the terminology, such as improvisation, mime, hot-seating, tableau, freeze-frame, thought-tracking, thought-walk, passing thoughts, conscience alley, role on the wall, teacher-in-role, mantle of the expert, performance carousel and eavesdropping.
• Start to develop a practical understanding of the elements and conventions of drama and start using its associated terminology, such as role/character, relationship, time and place, tension, focus and emphasis.
• Through drama, explore, reflect on and communicate issues of personal, social and global significance and concern (with teacher support).
• Plan and refine a short group scene together (with support if necessary), for performance to each other.
• Experience and respond to live and recorded drama experiences and theatre performances, identifying strengths and areas for development.
• Consider how drama can be used creatively, to stimulate and communicate feelings and ideas to others.
• Have opportunities to use digital technologies with drama, such as: sound sequences, recording and using images.
• Experience creating and performing drama, sometimes in combination with other artforms.
• Identify forms of drama and theatre within their homes and communities, for example in television, computer games and cinema.
• Become aware of drama and theatre traditions around the world, such as circus, pageant, street theatre or festivals.
• Improvise, explore and depict real and imagined worlds through drama.
• Working in role to engage and empathise with characters, situations and events from known stories and stories they create together.
• Describe and interpret their own drama work and the work of others.
• Adopt, sustain and develop a range of roles for different purposes, within various imagined contexts and situations.
• Improvise roles and devise short performances that sustain characters, plots and intentions.
• Explore how facial expressions, body language, gestures, movement, stillness and space carry meaning and can be used to intentionally communicate different emotions and characteristics of behaviour.

patricebaldwin.net/curriculum

Next issue: a possible drama curriculum for nine to 11-year-olds