Through teaching drama and the LAMDA exam syllabus I strive to enhance personal, social and educational development both in schools as well as private settings. My current and most recent schools include Roedean, Wimbledon High School and Dolphin School Clapham.
I have always felt passionately that Drama is a powerful tool and should be used to enhance development in a huge variety of ways.
I started drama classes at my local theatre at age 6, and was instantly attracted to the freedom it provided to escape into a different world, create characters and ultimately explore life in a way I hadn’t previously experienced. By the age of 16 I was teaching drama to Key Stage 1 and 2 children at Centre Stage drama school in Sussex, whilst simultaneously studying for and attaining my Gold Speech and Drama Award with New Era Academy.
In 2006 I completed my Drama BA at the University of East Anglia. Upon graduating I continued to further my teaching experience, facilitating a varied range of group and private classes. These lessons provided me with a whole new insight of how powerful drama can be. Scripts, characters, and “acting” were not required to fulfil a rewarding session for my pupils. I learnt to adapt my training and years of experience as a student to develop and to engage the classes, and was struck that drama sessions weren’t just a place to have fun, or a place for people to develop a talent or skill. The sessions could also be a powerful environment for people to explore their own bodies and emotions, and the benefits resulting from this were immeasurable. It has become clear to me that these benefits should be available more openly to people from all areas of life, and not just a privilege available to children in education.
I take great pride in planning lessons, and particularly enjoy using drama to enhance learning in different areas of the curriculum. Getting out of the classroom and using our focus, energy, bodies and emotions can benefit pupils in all areas. I also thoroughly enjoy dissecting Shakespeare and creating ways to make classic texts accessible and relevant people from all walks of life. In 2008 I decided to challenge my personal development and began lessons in British Sign Language.
I immediately fell in love with a language where expression and emotion were so vital to basic everyday communication. Alongside my studies I sought experience working within the deaf community, and landed a voluntary position as a Drama teacher at Oak Lodge Secondary School for hearing impaired children. Working with children with a wide range of Special Educational needs, as well as those for whom English is an additional language, challenged me to think about differentiation while planning sessions.
The sessions naturally moved away from the structure of those I’d previously led, as I was able to develop more experiential workshops, using drama as a resource for the class to explore and express emotions. In 2017 I completed a Foundation in Dramatherapy course at Roehampton University. The course focused on aspects of Dramatherapy and Ritual Theatre using experiential workshops and seminars. Exploring the relationship between body and mind, using dramatic contexts such as masks, storytelling and developmental play emphasised to me the psychological and behavioural effects that can achieved in a Drama class. I found the course incredibly rewarding and my teaching has an increased level of awareness as a direct result.