Europe's biggest Drama teaching CPD event

Drama CPD session provision takes a huge leap up this year to a massive 28 workshops and seminars across all Key Stages, and catering for streams including SEND and Inclusion, Curriculum and Assessment, Extra-Curricular and Higher Education Drama.

The full programme can be viewed at the Expo website – www.mdexpo.co.uk – and for the first time Drama provision is extensive enough that our old friend Lucille and her imaginary fellow-delegates can't really manage a walk-through of every session in only a page. Here, therefore, is a selection of sessions arranged by day and by specialism, for you to see at a glance why you might like to register for the Expo.

Day 1

Our Day 1 all-delegates warm-up session is to be led this year by a true superstar of arts education: TV's Gareth Malone! Arrive at 9:15 in good time to gather in front of the Performance Stage at the centre of the exhibition floor and sing your way into an exhilarating and inspiring day.

Early Years and Primary

Teachers with students up to Key Stage 2 will find a particularly rich offering on Day 1 this year, beginning with We are all storytellers | Storytelling drama and literacy in Primary schools in The Space at 10am, followed by two large-scale sessions in the Keynote Theatre: Sing a song - tell a tale!, and Reimagining primary music for the new Ofsted framework. EY and Primary are settings in which music specialists are often asked to teach Drama and vice versa, so there are many reasons to visit sessions across both disciplines. In the latter half of the day, opportunities include Running a successful and inclusive primary or beginner orchestra, Facilitating positive musical experiences in the Early Years and KS1 setting, or from much respected Drama education specialist and regular D&T contributor Patrice Baldwin, Exploring and extending picture books through Drama.

Techniques

If you come to the Expo in search of new techniques for secondary Drama, there is plenty of opportunity to learn on Day 1. At 11:15 in The Space, a practitioner from the National Youth Theatre will be running a session on Performing classical text | A masterclass in techniques and approaches, after which Erika Hughes offers an approach which was certainly new to me in programming the Expo, with ‘Viewpoints’ improvisation technique in the Drama classroom. In the Sharing Lab in the morning, a pair of teachers of Music and Drama will be leading a discussion and sharing some tips on Arts essays: teaching the literacy aspects of music and drama courses, while an afternoon session with Adam Milford from Theatre Workout will help you to teach Devising physical theatre with practitioner inspiration.

Policy

Leaders who have let you escape school for the day on the promise of bringing back some policy ideas for the running of your department or the expansion of drama within and beyond the school will be pleased to hear that you're planning to attend PGCE Course Leader Jo Lock Smith's session on Building a drama curriculum to evidence character education for the new Ofsted framework at 10am in the Seminar Theatre. Later, in The Workshop, Samantha Coates courts controversy with a session entitled Gifted and talented are dangerous words, while Erika Hughes, in her second session of the day, explores Supportive feedback in the arts classroom: an introduction to the Critical Response Process.

Student career pathways

Day 1 includes two sessions designed to help teachers offer backstage, design and technical opportunities to your students. At 13:15 in the Workshop Theatre, Jo Franklin of Guildford School of Acting will run a session Introducing design and stage management: backstage involvement for your students in and out of school and later, in The Space, a session to help you get the best out of technical equipment and to help you train your students to use it too, Tech for musical theatre in schools will cover the mysteries of radio mics and more. Meanwhile, for performance pathways, meet Andy Johnson, author of The Excellent Audition Guide, in the Sharing Lab, to learn How to help your students get in to drama school, or if you're visiting on Day 2, Adam Milford's Sharing Lab entitled Creative careers advice for your students is the one for you.

Day 2

Day 2 delegates can start the day with a bang in the Keynote Theatre, enjoying a warm-up of Call and Response Song from West Africa with Kwame Bakoji-Hume. Then…

Cross-curricular and cross-school collaboration

These are watchwords on Day 2, with sessions to inspire you including Raising the profile of your drama department, led by a teacher who has successfully implemented Drama across her school; Drama, a most efiective link | Cross-curricular application for Drama techniques focussing particularly on the teaching of modern languages; Rap Club: embracing youth culture; and Inter-school drama collaboration to the benefit of all – again, led by two teachers from the front line, who've brought a state and an independent school together to perform and to learn from each other.

Teaching 101

Three sessions on Day 2 offer a pathway for delegates to enhance their management of different aspects of teaching life: management of the curriculum, in Building and Assessing a Knowledge Rich Drama Curriculum with Keith Burt; management of student behaviour, in Why manage behaviour when you can manage energy? from Rachel Hawker; and management of teacher anxiety in How to be with yourself so you can be with others – in front of others with Andy Johnson.

Drama techniques

Finally, some good old fashioned practical sessions cover key topics on Day 2 including Using Drama to explore cultural diversity, Using music to create physical theatre with text, Starting with scripts, and Stage combat: the foundations of communication and storytelling.

I look forward to seeing you in London on 4 and 5 March 2020: it promises to be an inspiring couple of days.

To view the full programme and to register, free, visit www.mdexpo.co.uk/London