Introduction to Drama in the Primary Curriculum

David Farmer has been running workshops, writing books and providing online resources through Drama Resource for many years, and has recently branched out into online courses which are proving a great success, reaching teachers all over the globe. In this one-day in-person workshop in central London he introduced a group of us to a number of ways in which drama could be incorporated into the primary curriculum to teach other subjects rather than as a subject in its own right.

Participants were primary teachers, and one secondary – who will nonetheless be able to apply all of the activities in settings for KS3 and up, since many of them are based on exercises developed originally for adult professional actors. None of them were drama specialists, and more than one was an English specialist who’d been asked by their school to take on Drama as well – a familiar trope – while another was a deputy head looking to incorporate greater creativity into the school day to encourage literacy and creative writing, particularly among boys. All of these teachers will have come away with a host of practical exercises that they can use immediately in the classroom to teach everything from science to maths, geography, history and creative writing.