Make some space for Drama, Mr Gove
Yes, I know I’m always harping on about confidence and its importance, but I just don’t think that there is enough emphasis on this vital contributor to lifelong success in our children’s Early Years education.
Drama, which is a proven way of helping children develop confidence, concentration and all manner of social skills for their future lives, is still appallingly low on the National Curriculum’s agenda. One example of this is the fact that Drama is still being treated as part of English rather than a subject in its own right
Anyone who has experienced Drama classes themselves or seen their child transform during Drama, will know that the difference it makes cannot be underestimated. It really is high time that this was addressed by the Department for Education.
Happy 12th Birthday Perform
12 months. 12 disciples. 12 star signs. 12 years of Perform.
On 8th January 2012, Perform was 12 years old and I, for one, can’t quite believe it. It was January 8th 2000 when I started my first ever Perform class at Primrose Hill Community Centre with just 4 children. And now, 12 years later, we have over 4,000 children attending our classes every week in over 200 venues from London to Brighton, to Winchester to Leighton Buzzard and to Oxford.
I’d started planning Perform in June 1999 and my business partner Will and I had spent hours and hours even before then thinking of how we could create the best ever drama workshops for young children. We’d worked for other drama schools and we wanted to do something better. Something with child’s development at the heart of the workshops instead of vocal technique, dance steps, lines and auditions. An opportunity for young children to have fun with drama, dance and singing, but without the pressure of having to be “talented” or competing with others. Read more »
Thanks to our amazing drama teachers
The last 3 weeks have been extremely busy for me because I’ve been contracting all our teachers for next term. As you can imagine, with over 200 schools and currently 208 teachers working for Perform, this is no easy task. It also demands quite a lot of concentration, so the mince pies and gingerbread lattes have been helping with this too!
Because we now have quite a few schools, many people think that Perform is franchised like most other drama, dance and singing organisations. But we aren’t. Everything is centrally run and we are very specific about the sort of teacher who works for us – specifically, we only pick the fabulous sort. Which is why I actually really enjoy the contracting part of my job, because it means that I get to talk to them all. Read more »
Taking your children to the theatre – Lucy’s Top 10 Tips
We all know the magic of going to see a live performance. And I really believe (well I would, wouldn’t I?) that it’s really important to expose children to live theatre from as young as you can. And what better time to do this than in the panto season? The time of year when every town and sometimes even village has a pantomime for you to take your child to see.
The great thing about going to see a pantomime is that they are primarily designed for all the family so you don’t have to worry about children making noise, dropping sweet wrappers and getting up to go to the loo. However, I did think it might be useful to put together some top tips for taking children to the theatre generally. As part of my research, I asked our Regional Partner and veteran panto director, Simon Fielding, what his top tip for taking children to a pantomime was. His response: “Don’t be afraid of them making noise, pantomimes are meant to be crazy”.
Anyway, here they are: Read more »