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

By the age of five, children should have had indoor and outdoor opportunities for sociodramatic play, hopefully including interactions with a teacher or teaching assistant in role. They will have experienced active storytelling, using stories, nursery rhymes, action rhymes and picture books; the children will probably have made and used simple puppets, incorporated story sacks and ambiguous props such as scarves and boxes in their retellings of stories they know and ones they have created themselves.

They will probably have played dramatic games together, involving make-believe, imitation and mimicry. These will usually require the children to learn the importance of turn-taking and collaboration, both of which are skills required for drama throughout the curriculum. They may have seen and responded to a live or recorded performance of some sort, such as a visit from a puppeteer. These interactions and opportunities for storytelling are the foundations of drama, which can be developed throughout their primary years. A successful Drama curriculum can help support and guide this.