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Important update from TheSchoolRun

For the past 13 years, TheSchoolRun has been run by a small team of mums working from home, dedicated to providing quality educational resources to primary school parents. Unfortunately, rising supplier costs and falling revenue have made it impossible for us to continue operating, and we’ve had to make the difficult decision to close. The good news: We’ve arranged for another educational provider to take over many of our resources. These will be hosted on a new portal, where the content will be updated and expanded to support your child’s learning.

What this means for subscribers:

  • Your subscription is still active, and for now, you can keep using the website as normal — just log in with your usual details to access all our articles and resources*.
  • In a few months, all resources will move to the new portal. You’ll continue to have access there until your subscription ends. We’ll send you full details nearer the time.
  • As a thank you for your support, we’ll also be sending you 16 primary school eBooks (worth £108.84) to download and keep.

A few changes to be aware of:

  • The Learning Journey weekly email has ended, but your child’s plan will still be updated on your dashboard each Monday. Just log in to see the recommended worksheets.
  • The 11+ weekly emails have now ended. We sent you all the remaining emails in the series at the end of March — please check your inbox (and spam folder) if you haven’t seen them. You can also follow the full programme here: 11+ Learning Journey.

If you have any questions, please contact us at [email protected]. Thank you for being part of our journey it’s been a privilege to support your family’s learning.

*If you need to reset your password, it will still work as usual. Please check your spam folder if the reset email doesn’t appear in your inbox.

Key Stage 1 drama – what they learn

Children in fancy dress
Find out what your wannabe actor will be learning in school and how to help them practise drama at home.

Drama is used a great deal in literacy, to help children to engage with the texts they have read, empathising with characters and developing their own ideas, prior to writing.

Year 1 children are required to be able to re-tell familiar stories, join in with predictable phrases and recite rhymes and poems by heart. In Year 2, they need to become familiar with retelling a wider range of stories and build up a repetoire of poems learnt by heart, reciting some with appropriate intonation to make the meaning clear.

Here are some ways that drama is used in KS1:

 

  • While the teacher is reading a story, two children may be asked to stand at the front, dressed as characters from the story. They may be asked to join in by calling out particular lines of dialogue from the story.
  • The class may learn a simple poem and then get split up into groups and asked to practise it, accompanied by musical instruments and actions.
  • Children may be asked to improvise a scene or conversation from a story, by acting it out in their own words. They may be asked to make up their own scene (for example: a different ending).
  • Children may be asked to 'hot-seat.' One child sits on a chair at the front and pretends to be a character from a story read, for example, Cinderella. The others need to ask this child questions ('How did you feel when you lost your slipper?') and they then answer in character.
  • Children may be asked to interview each other in character. For example, one is a reporter and the other is the giant from Jack and the Beanstalk. The reporter needs to ask they giant why he is so cruel and how he feels about what has happened in the story.

Lessons examples

Here’s some example of activities teachers might plan:

  • Year 1 pupils assume the role of villagers in Jack and the Beanstalk and interview the giant about why he is grumpy. It enables them to see the story and giant from a different viewpoint, and to come up with solutions as to how to make him happier.
     
  • After a year 2 class reading of Walk with a Wolf by Janni Howker, the children write dialogue in role as the wolf searching for food in the cold Canadian mountains. One of their objectives is to use descriptive language well.

Help your child at home

  • Read with your child and listen to them read, too.
     
  • Ask your child to imagine they are one of the characters in the story. What do they think or feel about events?
     
  • Read aloud to your child using different voices for different characters, and encourage your child to do the same.
     
  • Take your child to the theatre. Make sure you discuss the play afterwards: which bit did you like best? Who was the best actor? What did you like about the costumes?
     
  • Create a role play box full of props and costumes. Your child will have fun exploring this with their siblings and friends.