The Drama Department would like to give a huge thank you to Year 10 GCSE Drama and Year 12 Drama and Theatre Studies pupils who helped to run the recent Junior School Drama day.
Their enthusiasm and patience with the young pupils was exemplary and clearly showed the character traits of kindness and creativity.
On Monday, the EYFS and KS1 children (and a few members of staff!) came to school dressed as different characters for our annual ‘Storytelling and Drama Day’. We took turns to go to the drama studio at the Senior School to see what Ms Burns had planned for us this year with the help of her drama students.
Nursery and Reception children found out about the story of ‘The Elves and The Shoemaker’ as students used puppets to help tell the tale. The children thought it was very funny when the elves kept hiding and then had a wonderful time as they gave shiny gold coins to the elves. Everyone sang a song accompanied with actions to complement the story and passed the shoes in a production line as they pretended to make them.
Year 1 children watched as Year 10 students acted the fable of ‘The Bear and The Raven’ before being taught the steps of an indigenous American dance. They then split into small groups to re-enact the story, pretending to be either a fish, raven or bear in the story and holding poses as part of a totem pole. It was interesting to discover that traditionally, a totem pole tells a story with the beginning of the story at the bottom of the pole and reading upwards. The moral of the tale was that if we work together, we can create a better world.
Year 2 also really enjoyed their drama session at the senior school. They learnt how to do an indigenous American dance and to re-enact the traditional story of ‘The Eagle who thought he was a Chicken’. They found out about the importance of believing in themselves and working as part of a team. The Year 12 students worked patiently with the children and helped to create a lovely workshop for them.
We would like to say a very big thank you to Ms Burns and her team of students who took the time to make our drama day so exciting!
In the afternoon, we all came together for a special assembly. Year 2 children acted out the story ‘Bumpus Jumpus Dinosaurumpus’ by Tony Milton and we all enjoyed joining in with ‘Shake, shake, shudder near the sludgy old swamp. The dinosaurs are coming. Get ready to romp!’ Year 1 recited a poem about a rocket called ‘Zim, Zam, Zoom’ by James Carter and used actions as they spoke. Nursery and Reception children watched their teachers act out the story of ‘Goldilocks and the Three Bears’, reminding them what happened next and sharing their best roars at the end! We sang a few nursery rhymes too as we celebrated ‘World Nursery Rhyme Week’.
It is wonderful to see how much pleasure children are taking as they share rhymes and stories in their own languages or from their own cultures as well as English. We definitely have many children who are reading and enjoying books in our Nursery, Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 classes and their enthusiasm is a joy to behold.
As always, we thank you for your support.
