Plant Dramas Resources

These are practical sessions, and while you don’t need a specialist theatre or studio, you will benefit from some extra space. This could be the hall, or through clearing space in a classroom. As always making sure the space is safe for physical activity is important.

• We have designed these plans to be used by non-specialist teachers. While we think there are clear advantages to using creative drama approaches, we understand that you might want to start by incorporating one or two short drama activities into your lesson plan, rather than starting with an entirely drama focused session.
• You may want to make use of physical warm-up games, or activities to build focus at the start of the session. Careful observation of the energy levels within the classroom will allow you to judge what might be needed. We have provided a range of possible warm-up activities.
• Providing time for discussion and reflection is particularly important, as it will allow your participants to gain the benefits discussed above. Some of the opportunities for discussion and reflection will come through watching the work produced by other groups. It is often helpful to provide questions to focus the active watching of the audience – “which moment did you like most?”, “what did you learn about their habitat?”, “how do you think these plants felt?”, etc. It may be that you do not always have time to see the work of all groups, but groups could share work with each other, space permitting.
• Drama is fundamentally about switching perspective, and these resources show that this doesn’t just have to be human perspectives. Taking the fiction seriously is an important part of this process.
• It is important to watch the participation and interaction taking place in the room. Some children may be confident performing, others may be more confident discussing or writing. The lesson plans allow for different types of contribution to different activities, but for many students there will be benefits in taking part in performance activities.
• There are sometimes concerns from primary teachers that using drama activities will result in children becoming unfocused and uncontrollably energetic. The range of different types of engagement with the different activities will help to channel energies into creative, collaborative engagement.
• Brian Woolland, in his book sets out the “four big myths surrounding drama in the primary school”, which are as follows: as a teacher you need to be a good actor; that you and your class need to be highly creative; that you need long sessions put aside on the timetable; and that you need to use the school hall (1993: 13). We have set out these resources so that they can be used in short blocks in almost any space by all teachers and most pupils.