I believe the video about how to structure a drama lesson that we were informed to watch has been very beneficial to my understanding of how to take a drama lesson that is structured and stimulates learning. It provided a range of ideas and examples of activities that keep the children engaged.

The video discussed how you should try and start your lesson with a class agreement. This is a set of rules that are agreed upon by the teacher and pupils through a discussion. The set of rules helps to guide the work and behaviour of the pupils during the entirety of the lesson. I think this is a small but helpful task as straight away the children know what behaviour is expected of them. The video then discussed the three C’s which are the main reasons you might come across as to why a pupil may be disrupting the lesson. It could be down to either, communication, concentration or co-operation. This is important to keep in mind when planning any lesson as you may have to alter your teaching methods in order to keep all pupils engaged or to make sure that they all understand what you are asking them to do. The next thing that should be done is a warm-up. There was a variety of different kinds of warm-ups, for example, team warm-up or a vocal warm-up as long as the pupils are warming up parts of their bodies, however, it also mentioned the importance of the children’s understanding that this is not playtime and that there is learning involved within this task. Furthermore, you must establish a focus of lesson with the pupils. This is very important as because of the amount of physical activity involved the pupils with more than likely be very excitable. Therefore establishing with them the purpose of what they are about to do will mean that they are excited but also focused.

The next part of the lesson was the development stage which was described as when a small drama task is developed into something much bigger. In the workshop with Nikki, we experienced this. We were first asked to think of a still image that showed the moment that the clock struck midnight on new years eve. Then we had to do the same thing, however, one image had to be from 6 o’clock that same day and the other had to be from the next morning. We then had to do them in sequence whilst other groups watched with their eyes open and then they had to re-watch but within the transitions moments, they had to shut their eyes. After that Nikki then asked us to press play on our still image and bring it to life. This showed us how a small task such a creating one still image can turn into a mini performance. The video also gave tips on how to draw more ideas out of the children through the use of soundscape and bodyscape. This is when the children have to make the noises of the thing they are portraying or they have to use only their body to create an object within a picture. It showed the example of women acting as a gate and when she was acting to sound it out she made the noise of a gate squeaking open.

At the end of the lesson, they said to schedule in an evaluation to see if your learning intention was achieved and to see what the children have learnt. It is also a good time to see what they would want to do next time and see if they enjoyed it the lesson. This means that you have material for your next lesson and also helps you make changes to certain parts if they didn’t enjoy certain activities as much or didn’t really understand certain parts of it.

Overall the workshop with Nikki and the video gave me a clear indication of how to structure and run a drama class. I feel a lot more confident about teaching drama as I have a distinct idea in my mind of the basic way a lesson can be taught.