VIEWSVIEW S From the pen of... Samantha Marsden Fromthepenof... SamanthaMarsden


Thismonth, in our popular series on authors working in UK education,we hear from SAMANTHAMARSDEN, author of “100 Ac Exercises for 8 – 18 YearOlds”, on the benefits of teaching drama to pupils.


Acting


I’ve taught drama to children and teenagers for eleven years and I’ve seen first-hand the many benefits. I’ve watched shy students become confident, creative students shine, and children who are being bullied learning how to stand up for themselves through drama exercises. Learning the acting techniques taught in drama


schools doesn’t just help students


with acting, it also helps with literacy, team work, social skills, verbal reasoning, confidence, lateral thinking, empathy and creativity.


I wrote this book because I believe acting techniques can help students in many areas of life. Drama doesn’t have to remain only in the drama class, it can also be useful when teaching other subjects, such as P.E, English and History.


Here’s an example of one activity from my book 100 Acting exercises for 8 – 18 Year Olds.


Letme tell you a story Age: 8 plus.


Skills: Communicative skills, imagination, confidence, improvisation, listening and storytelling. Participants: Pairs. Time: 10–15 minutes.


You’ll need: Anything between five and twenty props laid out i n the centre of a circle of students. These props can be anything, but variety is good. Examples include a hair dryer, a mug, a pair of shoes, a toy car, a pen, a wig, an apple, keys, a book and some soap.


Howto: The class sit in a circle, and in the centre of the circle, there’s a pile of props. As explained above, this can be a collection of any random objects. One student then comes into the centre of the circle, takes one of these objects and tells the class a made-up story about the bjobject. The more eccentric the story, the better! If Alex picked up a bar of soap, he could tell the class any story he liked about it. Perhaps he would explain that it is a magic bar of soap that makes you invisible as you lather it into y our skin. H e might go on to tell a story about how he once used soap at school and then he sneaked into the staff ro


ry about ...


A storytelling game where students create a story based on an object.


British Educational Suppliers Association (BESA) BritishEducational SuppliersAs rs Association(BESA) A)


The place to ge t LearnED about technology


Thismonth, regular Education Today contributor PATRAT ICK HAY


AYES, Director of BESA,


the organisation’s LearnED CPD roadshows. It was really encouraging to see the


Secretary of State for Education Damian Hinds open the Bett Show 2019 in Londo n this year, and enthuse so much about the revolutionary potential that technology has when it comes to both delivering lessons, but also in managing the “back-end” of schools.


Far too many of our primary school pupils currently have an experience of education that lacks the kind of


transformative approaches showcased by


over 800 suppliers at Bett – not least because too many of their teachers are wary of using technology because they believe it would be frowned on by the powers that be in the DfE and Ofsted. Or they find the supporting infrastructure lacking, due to a lack of expertise within the school – or a lack of budget. It can sometimes also be incredibly hard to know where to start!


on this Not


since the days of Becta has Government provided leadership issue, and no one is romanticising those days. But this has


begun to change, due to Damian Hinds’s vision for the use of EdTech in schools. He challenged tech companies – like the trusted suppliers BESA represents - to work in partnership with schools to help teachers solve the challenges they face in terms of workload, efficiency and making the best use of digital resources in the curriculum. This is what you would expect, perhaps, from an individual who revealed at Bett that he started his career coding at IBM, and was apparently one of the first people in the UK to have an email address ! We were very proud that in his speech, he referred to the joint DFE/BESA peer-to-peer led CPD roadshows, LearnED, currently taking place around the country, helping expert teachers share their experiences and ideas on how to use technology effectively in all schools, in a local context.


om and found the invisible


out that all the teachers were aliens! Or he might tell a different story about how it’s a very old soap that his granddad had during the war and how his grandfather never used the rose-scented soap because the smell reminded him of his granny; instead, when he was in the trenches, he would sniff it to remember her.


Variation: Split the class into groups of four or five, and give each group an object. Give them 10 minutes to create a short improvisation based on that object. Once these scenes have been devised, they can be shown to the rest of the class.


bj


Tip: Encourage students to use eye contact and to use their pause s while telling t heir stories about the ob


bjject.


The aim: For students to build the confidence and skills to create and tell stories.


Samanth ’s now ava la


Sa


tha’s book, “100 Acting Ex vailable fr


k, from Amazon. Marc h 02 1 9 2019 Exercisises fo es for 8 – 18 Ye Year Olds”, isis ds


This reflects the reality that teachers want to learn from each other, professional-to-professional. It’s encouraging to have a government which encourages this peer-to-peer approach, rather than dictating what teachers should be doing from upon high – and in a way that can too-often be divorced from on-the-ground realities in schools. The LearnED roadshows have currently run in Rotherham, Newcastle and Cambridge, offering certified CPD to hundreds of school leaders . Over 90%of respondents who have attended so far tell us that they would attend another roadshow.


We are only too aware that your time is precious – this is why we are running LearnED events around the country, so you can attend one close to you. The events have a specific focus on how technology can save teachers time – and are entirely free to attend. Indeed, we even offer bursaries to ensure that your travel costs are covered. There are five more LearnED event taking place this school year – in Manchester, Coventry,Maidstone, Bristol and Reading. If you’re interested in finding more about how technology can play a greater your school in a relaxed environment with your peers, have a www.learned.org.uk and consider signing up. I hope to se e


look at role in


you at one of t hem.


For nfoi formation fromBESA contact 020 7537 4997


patrick@besa.org.uk ww


www.besa.org.uk www. wwweducation-today.co.uk.co.uk 31 ct: A, shines a light on


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