Drama at the Music & Drama Education Expo has been getting bigger year-on-year, and London 2019's programme features more than 30 sessions for drama delegates covering everything from Early Years up to Higher Education in matters such as pedagogy, assessment, curriculum and extra-curricular drama and performing arts. And as always, music sessions are entirely open to drama delegates throughout the show, with lots of cross-curricular relevance and scope for inspiration on offer.
The show will take place slightly later in the year this year, on 6-7 March 2019, in its usual home: Kensington's Olympia Central. Every year it's a buzzing, fun-filled inspiring day of shared expertise and enthusiasm among some of the finest arts practitioners in the UK and beyond. Now that the full programme has been announced, as has become traditional, I'll let my fictional drama teachers loose on the two days of sessions, and see what takes their fancy…
Lucille returns to Expo: Day 1
Lucille (33, secondary drama head of department – she's been promoted!) arrives in time for the 9:15 Welcome and the drama warm up in The Space – this year, after the success of this initiative in Manchester, there are two warm-ups: one for music and one for drama teachers, and the drama offering on day 1 is an introduction to Street Dance – fun and energising but also great inspiration for work with performing arts students. Then at 10am there is time to slip over to the Performance Stage in the middle of the exhibition to hear Performing Arts students from Esher College doing their thing, before heading to the Rhinegold Theatre for a session on Confidence, poise and balance for all performers | Alexander Technique.
At this point it's necessary to pan our movie camera over to The Space, where another teacher is about to start in their first session of the day: Conor (27, secondary performing arts teacher) is new to Expo and didn't realise he'd be missing out in not joining the warm up, but he's on site for Directing a scene: a Shakespearean Masterclass in The Space at 10:35am. Led by practitioners from the Shakespeare Schools Foundation, the session looks at working with students on scenes incorporating principals and ensemble, which will be useful for the school play Conor is co-directing. Meanwhile, at 10:50, Lucille has headed to the Seminar Theatre to hear Matt Yeoman talk about Evidence-informed practice in the arts, something she's keen to make standard in her own school now that she's HOD.
At 11am, drama sessions get underway in the Sharing Lab, and here we find Javinder (42, head of drama and performing arts in a sixth-form college) who's gone to meet Kim Durham, formerly head of acting at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, and on hand to give a unique insight into best-practice preparation for Javinder's drama school applicants, in a session called Auditioning for drama school.
As a musician, Conor is extremely excited to head to the Rhinegold Theatre at 11:05 to hear Nicola Benedetti give a keynote speech! He's totally star-struck – and with good reason – after that session he has to take a break and wander round the exhibition floor while he calms down: fortunately Samuel French are on hand to chat about play texts for his next school production.
There's always a shoulder to pretend-cry on at Expo
Foiled again!
In the meantime, however, Javinder has nipped over to the Seminar Theatre for the 11:40 session on Lighting Fundamentals. Mig Burgess teaches at Guildford School of Acting and has lots of insight to help Javinder with those students who are specialising in that for their A Levels. Then at 13:00 it's back to the Sharing Lab to hear from Sean Crowley of the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama about Stage management and design training for those same students.
Back in The Space, drama's natural home, the first dedicated primary session has been taking place from 12:45, entitled Creativity in the primary curriculum: Blodin the Beast by Michael Morpurgo. Weaving citizenship and aspects of PSHCE into a drama scheme of work, the session ticks loads of boxes for Mel (26, Primary teacher); and straight after it, Conor heads in there for the KS3 Assessment in Drama session led by Catherine Nash, who received extremely high praise for her session on the same subject in Manchester 2018.
At 14:30, Lucille goes to the Sharing Lab. She's interested to hear what Onur Orkut has to say about the Transition to Higher Education for her students – his thoughts on self assessment and critical thinking in acting will inform the way she asks them to work in their final year at school so that they are prepared to continue into a new way of learning independently. Meanwhile at 14:45 Mel has found another Primary session on Embedding the arts across the curriculum to enhance and inspire learning and is making copious notes in the Seminar Theatre.
By the end of the day, our four teachers still haven't crossed paths, since their own streams of interest have taken them to different sessions at every point. 15:30 sees Javinder seeking solace on Being a one-person drama department in the Sharing Lab with Peter Deam, while at 15:45, Lucille learns about Filmmaking without a computer in The Space – ready to try something new with her KS3 students – and Conor, his directing career taking off fast, attends the Workshop session on Producing the school musical. It's been a long and thrilling day, and every one of our teachers (conveniently) is coming back tomorrow, so we'll leave them in private for their evenings in on the sofa or out on the tiles…
Lucille, Conor, Javinder and Mel return to Expo: Day 2
After their jam-packed first day, all our four delegates treat themselves to a lie-in and miss the Welcome address from the heads of content, but they're all together in The Space for the Stage Combat drama warm-up: it's been a firm favourite two years running in Manchester and Lucille, Conor, Javinder and Mel are all big fans too by the end of the session – and raring to go for the rest of their day. At 10:00, Conor heads straight to the Sharing Lab to learn from Karen Latto about Multiple choice assessment methods, while at 10:35 Mel goes back to The Space to learn about Engaging SEND and ESL students with drama – both kinds of student being numerous in her school.
At 11:00, Lucille is in the Sharing Lab to meet Piers Haggard of Directors in Schools, since she hopes to have a professional director come and work with her students this year; meanwhile Conor who is hoping to move up a rung or two on the ladder in the coming year attends the 11:15 session in the Seminar Theatre on Moving into school leadership.
Come midday, all four of our teachers are happily seated in front of the Performance Stage with sandwiches and coffee, ready to watch the lunchtime performance before heading off to their afternoon sessions, which for Lucille, Conor and Javinder begin with Brecht with a bang in The Space at 12:35. The same three are able to remain in the room thereafter because they're on a practitioner-roll, with Devising from a key extract of a play using a practitioner incorporating the examples of Frantic Assembly and A Streetcar Named Desire.
Mel, in the meantime, has been enjoying the exhibition and bracing herself for a busy afternoon for teachers with younger students, which begins at 14:00 with the Early Years Drama Sharing Lab, continues with a second Sharing Lab session, on Managing energy rather than behaviour, and ends with the last session of the day in The Space: Boosting communication, language and literacy through music, drama and role-play.
Lucille and Javinder, still sticking together and by now firm friends, finish their Expo 2019 adventure at 14:30 in The Space with Queering the Canon: gender and sexuality in classroom drama and school productions; but Conor goes rogue: to round off his two days of inspiration and fun, he decides that the final session for him will be Teaching rap | Literacy under the radar, which begins in the Rhinegold Theatre at 14:45 and ends with Conor vowing that one of the many school productions he's now planning will put Hamilton to shame: Saint Cuthbert's Secondary won't know what's hit it …