A recent project which I enjoyed because of its success was finding ways to bring history to life with 3 Year 6 classes in a South Shields Primary School. I was lucky to have a very supportive school and enthusiastic classes to bring try out some ideas. It was funded by the Creative Partnership Programme (which we will soon have to say good bye to)
We used a whole range of drama exercises and investigative practice to involve the year group. Everyone in the class had a vital part to play and something new to learn about and bring to the class. The process covered a six week period meeting one day a week. As there were three classes they took turns to have a day of drama with a different theme for each class so we ended up with a raft of knowledge which covered the topics of 'Victorian Children' 'The life and times of Florence Nightingale' and 'Famous Victorian inventors'.
The children really enjoyed presenting to each other sketches they had researched and written on the topics. We used everything we could think of from Victorian songs, adapting nursery rhymes and becoming the characters from history but by far the post popular activity was 'Drama in the dark' This we came upon almost by accident! Towards the end of the school day I set up a role play situation for the whole class when everyone became a character in a Victorian street with a space to imagine as their home and a role to play in the community (baker, maid, squire etc). They had a pile of cloths and some costumes to dress up their character then we created an imaginary day in the life of that Victorian scene. I don't like fluorescent lights so I turned them off and this then became 'Drama in the dark'. The rules were simple keeping in character starting and stopping the role play together. It was a very natural way for children to learn through play and even the shy ones felt freer in the twilight drama exercise
It was summed up by a very earnest participant informing me she used to to find History very boring and hard to understand " but this is different I will always love History now!"
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