CPD Review: National Theatre Drama Teacher Conference 2023

It's the February half term and for two days drama teachers from all over the country have come together to learn, share, chat and celebrate the joy of what they do. This was the National Theatre's annual Drama Teacher Conference.

‘Yes, we do it each year,’ says Nadia Bettioui, conference leader who took her post at National Theatre immediately after last year's conference which she attended in her former life as a drama teacher. ‘But the last two were done by Zoom. This is the first time we've been back in the room for three years.’

Getting started

For a while I'm sitting in one of the rooms at the National Theatre which the public don't usually notice – although there are windows onto the side road near the Dorfman entrance. Trios of teachers are earnestly, eagerly giving life to the simplest of tabletop puppets (made from tea towels and elastic bands), which are slowly, painstakingly negotiating a makeshift assault course. Toby Olié, probably the world's best-known puppeteer, is cruising the room offering advice. ‘Give your puppet breath,’ he says. ‘It's all in the breathing. I need to hear it.' He puts a lot of emphasis on what might work with, for or by students.

Toby Olie’s session was one of eight two-hour workshop options, of which delegates could opt into three. I observed, for example, part of one on devising and movement co-led by Helen Braggett, associate director with Gecko who has everyone barefoot doing circle work. ‘I love working with teachers’ she says. ‘They're so committed. They've come here to take part. They enthuse. They like chatting to each other. They're just, well, drama teachers!’

Then there was a two-hour workshop on verbatim theatre led by Helen Monks and Matt Woodhead of LUNG, a campaign-led verbatim theatre group founded in 2012. They talked about the work of Alecky Blythe and Max Stafford Clark, showed a filmed extract of the former's London Road at National Theatre and observed that different practitioners do it differently. ‘But it's all about ways of collecting testimony and then making dramaturgical choices.’ The fun included pairs describing ‘my little rebellion’ and recording it on their phones, which would be so easy to do in a classroom because every student has a phone. ‘When LUNG did The 56, a play about a fire in a football ground we took 60 testimonies’ says Helen.

Paper Birds, meanwhile, ran a devising workshop in a huge, lofty rehearsal space bigger than most school halls. They began with walking activities, before going on to work on cards assigning them emotions and eventually, in groups of five, devised silent stories. It's fascinating to watch the group dynamics because, of course, if you're with drama teachers, you're all directors.

A range of sessions

Workshop options ranged across mask work, lighting, design and other aspects of theatremaking – all useful for drama teachers trying to expand the horizons of their students and learn more about the subject they love.

Other strands in the conference included some one-hour workshops, a back stage tour, opportunities to explore National Theatre's resources, such as its archive. On Saturday afternoon there was a two-hour session for all delegates on Textual Analysis for Students, led by NT associate director Lyndsey Turner.

The conference was attended by 115 teachers on the first day (the Friday of half term) and 85 on the Saturday. Nadia was especially pleased to have one delegate from New York, one from Ireland and one from Switzerland. ‘We seem to be going international,’ she said happily. Many had made a weekend of it and the NT gave each delegate a complimentary ticket to see either Romeo and Julie or Standing at the Sky's Edge on the Friday evening.

An excited atmosphere

The buzz among attendees seemed to be all about sharing enthusiasm for their subject with other like-minded people. ‘Many drama teachers are single-person departments so on a day to day basis they have no one to bounce ideas off,’ observes Nadia.

She tells me soberly that most teachers are funded by their schools, but there are some who have to pay their own conference fee, travel and hotel. Because it's half term there is, either way, no issue with cover. ‘We have bursaries, funded from the NT budget, to help teachers who are not supported by their schools and who need assistance,’ she says. ‘And this year, I've had to bend that budget further than usual with full and half bursaries.’

In the introduction on Friday (after the complimentary breakfast), delegates were reminded that teaching drama is a lonely fight, and that National Drama is a very useful organisation for sharing situations and finding peer support.

Moreover, the DTEA (Drama & Theatre Education Alliance) is running an awareness raising week from 20 March. ‘Invite someone to watch one of your lessons – head, governors or anyone else with power – and show them why drama matters. Let them see what you do rather than what they think you do,’ teachers were advised.

The page for expression of interest in attending the National Theatre's 2024 Drama Teacher Conference opens in August.

nationaltheatre.org.uk/learn-explore/schools/drama-teacher-conference/