I’ve had the privilege and pleasure of representing Open Drama UK at The National Theatre’s Drama Teachers Conference over the last two days. After two years of disruption due to COVID-19, it was thrilling to be welcomed in person to the National Theatre for the conference. The purpose of the two-day conference was to bring together drama experts and practitioners to inspire, inform, and upskill, and this aim was certainly met. Workshops were led by theatre companies such as Gecko, Lung, Paper Birds, and Vamos Theatre, as well as theatre practitioners and industry professionals. Working with ..read more

What a great title for a conference that was both inspirational and shed fresh light on why we chose to be drama teachers in the first place. The venue was excellent for this conference and the Mast staff were friendly and accommodating. I particularly liked the way we had the same person assigned to a group so we never needed to worry about where to go next, and seeing they obviously enjoyed the sessions too. The highlight of the day for me were the two practical sessions. From the moment we entered the studio for the Frantic Assembly workshop the tension and excitement were palpable. It was ..read more

Sales should be at the centre of all theatre training rather than at its conclusion. The art of selling oneself and one’s abilities back to the industry is a very specific skill set that some theatre schools are avoiding teaching their students, and it’s undermining and hobbling many successful careers. Now, I’m not about to suggest that we all start organising awful roleplay sessions to counteract this or mind mapping new ways to make a better showreel; no, I’m suggesting that it is time to open up all of the boxes and interrogate the new ways students can have more agency over their career ..read more

Getting Ready for Drama School Training – Top Tips to help support students in their next step! Here at Fourth Monkey, we love meeting new actors and artists when they walk through our doors to start their drama school training – it is exciting to watch them evolve as an ensemble member and an individual performer, discover new creative practices and techniques, and explore where these skills could take them in the future!  We want to help teachers and students alike know what to expect from drama school training, so that new students can make the most of the opportunities ahead of them a ..read more

While many of us think that the Pandemic has made us change elements of our teaching – possible forever, possibly for good – one of the challenges of keeping Drama alive with young people was trying to produce performance working remotely. Some of the work that was produced was amazing, asking students to access technology that they knew to create original and exciting theatre. On the other hand, some students were unable to feel confident in this format and so no performance work could be produced. This is why this book is one of the most remarkable things I’ve read. Nick Bilborough and the H ..read more

The lack of any official KS3 National Curriculum is both a blessing and a curse for Drama teachers, forever allowing us to spread our creative wings in devising something engaging for our students whilst also hampering us with the constant worry that we have nothing official to measure it against. How do we know what we are teaching is coherent, valid, or indeed interesting? Luckily for us, we have a wonderful new aid in Keith Burt’s The Drama Teacher’s Handbook; a concise and accessible guide that offers a wealth of pedagogical theory, practical tips and a welcome emphasis on self-reflection ..read more

Results day is always a day of great anticipation, the media rolls out the same slightly irritating headlines and we all carry on year after year doing what we can to ensure students achieve their qualifications in spite of all the barriers we might face. This year was extraordinary in terms of teacher pressure to ensure we taught a modified specification, moderated it and assessed it! Open Drama UK invites you to now take some time, post results to review the data around the 2020 cohort and the positive news there is about the volume of young people who are accessing Drama at KS4 – despi ..read more

Ali Warren gets a sneak peak at 200 Plays for GCSE and A-Level Performance by Jason Hanlan. There are many challenges to being a Drama teacher. And many rewards. And both of those things are tied up in creating performance with young people. The joy of students rising to the challenge of a piece of text, the frustration of finding exactly the right play for that group of tricky girls who always want to work together or the boys who are enthusiastic not very able. It’s why you find the teacher Facebook pages full of random requests for plays for “2 boys, three girls and the boys are quite weak ..read more

As Open Drama UK Champions across all four nations continue to connect with drama teachers and educators in these testing and trying times, Sam Martin, our Berkshire Champion joined Downe House’s first faculty-led Teach Meet to talk about Effective Key Stage 5 Strategy in the Drama Classroom. Downe House Drama department provided an excellent opportunity for Drama teachers across the world to connect on a wet and windy afternoon.  A fantastic way to sharpen ideas and to grab new ones as each nano presentation offered something completely different. So many presenters found it hard to sti ..read more

Taking Centre Stage as an ECT is a proposed Webinar Series for the academic year 2021-2022. The webinar series will be organised and delivered by We Teach Drama, in collaboration with Open Drama UK. Lucy Bellingham (WTD) will be joined by co-host Holly Barradell (Open Drama UK). Holly has been working on the ‘roll out’ of the Early Career Framework and is an Assistant Principal, with responsibility for ECTs across the trust she works for. Holly is also a Drama specialist teacher. The series will follow a group of Secondary Drama ECTs throughout the year, as they take part in three scheduled we ..read more