Drama Workshop Ideas For Primary School Kids

Sometimes, it can be tricky to come up with fresh drama workshop ideas. Anyone who has ever developed a primary school musical or a youth production for a drama club will know that rehearsals tend to follow a rather standard format: warm-up, practise songs, work on the staging and movement of songs, block a scene, and finish with another song.

We feel compelled to struggle our way through the script, generally in chronological order, usually before children have learned their lines or have much awareness of the overall structure and storyline of the play.

However, with a little inventiveness, there are numerous alternative approaches which might add interest to rehearsals and depth to the final performance. So, in this blog, we aim to help your classroom and musical antics and get those creative juices flowing by taking a look at some top drama workshop ideas.

Our Favourite Drama Workshop Ideas for Primary Schools 

Here, you can find a variety of our favourite creative drama workshop ideas for KS1 and KS2 students. Take a sprinkling of inspiration and run with it!

1. Create character profiles

Great drama comes from great characters, and when a child knows their character, they are much more likely to remember their lines! Lines come about when a character makes a particular decision to say or do something, driven by a particular aspect of their personality. Working on character development during a rehearsal and encouraging the children to write down character profile details may be time well spent.

2. Conduct a role-play

To help the children get to know their characters further, it may be worth improvising day-to-day situations in which pupils play their characters alongside each other. For example, this could include kitchens, front gardens, street corners, railway stations, cafes, schools, and doctors’ offices.

3. Swap characters

Improvise scenes where everyone swaps their character with somebody else, allowing for observation of alternative means of portrayal. This may help create more in-depth characters in the long run.

4. Explore character mannerisms

The greatest characters don’t come without mannerisms. Ask pupils to come up with three physical or vocal mannerisms which they feel are suitable for their role and that they can sustain throughout the performance.

5. Generate backstories

In this drama workshop idea, children should be encouraged to create backstories for their characters. These can be improvised with a partner and then delivered as a life-story monologue. If pupils need help with this, you could offer them a series of questions (who, what, when, why, where, how) to consider.

6. Participate in hot seating

Hot seating is an excellent exercise in which the group ask questions to an actor who must respond in a manner suitable to how their character would answer. This can help children think more deeply about their characters

7. Divide scenes up

Dividing a scene up into key moments and asking the group to create a tableau for each one is a great way to develop an understanding of a scene, whilst also aiding blocking.

Ideally, rather than micro-managing every moment of a play, you want actors to have some flexibility of movement, just as people do. Using tableaux in rehearsal is effective in providing some structure without stifling independence, not to mention helping to ‘chunk’ things into manageable units of action.

8. Mark the pivotal point

Most scenes in a school musical work towards a particular moment, be it a line, an action, an entrance or an exit. During rehearsals, it is useful to have this moment in mind and even to draw attention to it, aiding the performers in their recognition of the purpose of the scene.

For example, you could mark it with a momentary freeze, some music, some silence, particular lighting, or by how you position it in the space.

9. Consider character thoughts

If a scene only involves a few people, why not use some of those not performing to portray the characters' subconscious? After each line is spoken, they could outline what is really being thought (or unsaid) and the purpose of the line.

10. Try forum theatre

Forum theatre is a great way of keeping the whole group involved, even if they are not currently on stage. Rather than the director steering the scene, the pupils take over from within the audience, putting forward ideas and suggestions after each unit of dialogue.

11. Encourage feedback

To ensure that everybody in the group remains fully involved, you could even try the handy activity of encouraging feedback. Ask the performers to act out the scene, then invite every member of the group to stand in one of five lines, providing specific feedback on what they have seen:

• Observe

Make an observation to the actors about something one or more of them did that they may not have realised.

• Challenge

Ask the actors if they can make it funnier, scarier, more exciting, or more dramatic.

• Praise

Give positive feedback about a particular thing somebody has done.

• Try

Request that an actor follow a specific suggestion, e.g. a particular movement or emphasis.

• Enquire

Ask an actor why they chose to speak or move in a particular way at a particular moment.

Once feedback has been given, re-run the scene and continue along the same lines until clear progress has been made.

12. Test line memory

The success of a school musical is just as much about everybody knowing their lines as it is in a straight play. As rehearsals edge into the final few weeks, try reading out particular lines from the show and asking anybody in that scene to take to the stage immediately and continue from that line onwards.

Not only do the kids love the challenge of it, but the more you do it, the more everybody wants to ensure that they know their own lines!

13. And finally … practise a full school musical

Clearly, there will be times when staggering through the musical, scene after scene, is the only course of action open to you. If this is the case, read up on how to make it as stress-free as you possibly can in our ultimate guide on how to put on a school musical.

For more ideas like these for use in a classroom setting, see our blog on classroom activities for school musicals.

How Students Can Benefit from Drama Workshop Ideas

Now that you know what drama workshop ideas for primary schools are out there, you may be wondering what the big fuss is all about. Why do them in the first place – and is drama the answer? Well, here are some benefits KS1 and KS2 students stand to gain from participating in drama workshop ideas:

• Confidence

Drama workshop ideas for primary schools can give pupils a taste of the action before acting in a full-blown school musical. Building up the children’s familiarity with drama in this way can help them grow more accustomed to working in different character roles and potentially help them excel when the big show day arrives.

• Engagement

All in all, drama workshop ideas are supposed to be fun! They are designed to engage school students and enable them to let their hair down between other lessons or in the summer holidays, potentially increasing concentration. What’s not to love?

• Creativity

Acting in a role may give children the opportunity to let their imaginations run wild. Whatever character they are pretending to be and whatever world they are pretending to live in, children can use their creativity to conjure up a story like no other.

• Teamwork

Drama workshop ideas can help teach students how to work together, effectively building teamwork as well as social and communication skills. What’s more, drama workshop ideas allow children to learn from each other as well as from the teacher.

How Do You Structure a Drama Workshop?

The fantastic thing about our drama workshop ideas is that they can be structured in various ways, meaning you never have to stick to a rigid structure. However, there are a few tips you can take on to optimise your workshop:

• Break down activities

Break down activities into manageable steps so that the children can learn to progress from the start to the end of the workshop. While a huge task may seem overwhelming and challenging, splitting it up into easier chunks can help pupils achieve the drama workshop goal with confidence.

• Consider how your workshop flows

You may want to consider the flow of the different activities you intend to carry out, designing the workshop so that each exercise can be moved on with minimal fuss and rearrangement.

• Read the room

Every class is different, which is why we recommend structuring your drama workshop ideas around your individual pupils.  It's always worth evaluating which aspects of drama your class needs to improve upon or which activities are most suitable for your end goal, whether this is to stage one of our leavers’ school musicals or simply boost a student's confidence levels.

Rounding Up on Drama Workshop Ideas for Primary Schools

So, there you have it! Hopefully, you’ve now been inspired to take on some of our favourite drama workshop ideas for yourself. Don’t forget to access our completely free downloads of songs to improve engagement in these workshops, including school year assembly songs and You, Me & Pshe assembly songs.

Have a question about drama workshop ideas? Don’t hesitate to contact us today. A member of our friendly team would love to help out and take you one step closer to immersing your class in all the benefits drama has to offer!