Using realistic or stylised sounds to accompany an action. Can use dialogue, voices or instruments to create a mood, the atmosphere of a place, or paint a picture. Can also be used as sound effects for realistic or abstract performances. The sounds can be performed live, or presented pre-recorded.

HOW (1)
Some children create noises and sounds to create a mysterious atmosphere for 'the wild woods', while others explore the woods through mime and movement, or create a still image or 'frozen picture' of the woods.

HOW (2)
Using voice and dialogue, one group of children produce sounds of a street carnival while scenes are acted out by another group of children.

HOW (3)
The teacher records the children creating sounds that might happen at a railway station, and then plays it back during the railway station scene of a drama about evacuees. The children consider what conversations might be heard on the 'soundtrack'.

Used to establish trust, build confidence, develop social skills, establish rules and set boundaries. They are useful for breaking the ice, are enjoyable, fun and enable a group to get to know each other. Can be physical, calm, verbal, or creative. Should reduce inhibitions and build group cohesion in a non-threatening way. Best when used in the context of drama.

HOW (1)
Developing the game of 'Fruitbowl', other categories such as modes of transport - car, aeroplane, bus, train, etc. - can be used instead of fruit names. Children can then be asked to move across the circle in the style of those different modes of transport.

HOW (2)
The class play 'Wink Murder' as an introduction to a drama about a mysterious crime. The children go into role-play as detectives and suspects.

HOW (3)
Develop a game of 'Prisoner' into a discussion about being unable to escape. Turn this into a drama about hostages or what being a 'prisoner' means to different people.

Groups devise an image using their own bodies to crystallise a moment, idea, theme or picture. Can use individual to act as sculptor for a group. Contrasting images can be made to represent actual/ideal, dream/nightmare versions. Highlights important moments and focuses thoughts and ideas in a simplistic but very powerful way.

HOW (1)
In a drama about a circus clown who cannot perform any more, children create a tableau of the scene where all his tricks go wrong and everybody is mocking him. This can subsequently be followed by a tableau of the scene showing how his problem is resolved, and then a final scene of the clown performing well.

HOW (2)
In a drama about homelessness, children create freezes to show different people's responses to meeting homeless people on the street.

HOW (3)
More abstract ideas are explored in which children express their creative thoughts by building a still image to represent the themes 'holidays', 'waiting for news', or 'remembering a bad dream'.

Interviewing a character or role-player who remains 'in role'. Group and teacher can ask questions. This may be done by freezing the improvised action and removing the characters, or by sitting them formally on the 'hot-seat' to face questioners. Questions can be limited or discussed and decided in advance. Encourages insights into character and roles, highlighting motivations and personality, and reflective awareness or human behaviour.

HOW (1)
Children place the teacher on the 'hot-seat' to respond to questions in a role taken from a storybook they are reading.

HOW (2)
The teacher or a child in the role of Goldilocks is placed on the 'hot-seat' to explore her reasons for entering the bear's house without being invited.

HOW (3)
In a drama about playground bullying, the action is frozen in the middle of a playground scene and the school bully is 'hot-seated' in order to explore his or her motives more fully by questions from the class.

The teacher stimulates and directs the drama from within by adopting a suitable role. This can excite interest, control the action, incite involvement, provoke tension, challenge superficial thinking, create choices and ambiguity, develop the narrative and create possibilities for the group to interact in role. Should be planned and purposeful. Removes some degree of power and status from the teacher but replaces it with negotiated role relationships.

HOW (1)
The teacher takes the role of a senior citizen taking a pet to an animal welfare centre, with the children in role as vets. The drama explores how the pet can be cared for.

HOW (2)
The teacher takes the role of a market owner who wants to shut down part of the market, as the area is dangerous and some stalls must be moved on to prevent the ground subsiding. The children adopt roles as market stallholders.

HOW (3)
The teacher takes the role of a refugee who does not speak English and who wants to contact her family in a different land. The children try to find a means of communicating and helping.

A situation or improvised piece is enacted by a small group whilst the rest of the class (including the teacher) observe. Action may be frozen at any time by both the actors and the observers, but particularly when it is felt that direction is lost, that help is needed, or that the drama is losing authenticity. Observers may step in and take over roles or add to them. Proceedings may be controlled by the teacher if necessary. The children can use this to examine and analyse actions and roles in the drama. Excellent for assessment and appreciation of work and processes.

HOW (1)
Two children suddenly realise that they are lost in a large market. The rest of the class watch a short scene and then advise them on what to do next.

HOW (2)
In a drama about evacuation, the class observe the scene at home when two children are about to leave their parents. They analyse the scene, mood, and responses of the parents and children.

HOW (3)
In a drama about bullying the action is stopped and the various characters questioned on their motives, actions or reactions. Alternative responses can be suggested before the action continues.

Children work in small groups to plan, prepare and present improvisations as a means of expressing understanding of a situation, idea or experience. Requires excellent negotiating skills on the part of the participants. Good for sequencing ideas, selecting content, exploring characterisation, devising dialogue and events, gaining performance skills and developing confidence in expressive performance.

HOW (1)
The children create scenes relating to Christmas morning - opening presents, playing with toys or watching television, for example.

HOW (2)
The children create scenes which reveal the problems the elderly have in the winter.

HOW (3)
In a situation in which the children have been exploring loneliness, they are asked to improvise a scene that shows some old people sitting in an old people's home, discussing their feelings about the past and the future.

Emphasises movement, actions and physical responses rather than dialogue. Encourages participants to select movements to match the action and to use appropriate gestures and body language. Removes the pressure of dialogue and raises spatial awareness and understanding of physical expression.

HOW (1)
Children mime the scene when a group of explorers approach a dragon's den, while a child or the teacher narrates the events. The scene is then re-run in slow motion, so that all the actions are carefully considered.

HOW (2)
Children mime the scene when the whole palace - cooks, gardeners, and so on - falls asleep in 'Sleeping Beauty', in order to consider what happens just before a key moment in this story.

HOW (3)
Using a famous legend, for example, Beowulf, the children mime a scene which demonstrates their own ideas for protecting and guarding Beowulf's castle, which is threatened by the monster, Grendel.

An oral or written account of events. Narration has many uses: a teacher might provide narrative links in a drama; it can move a drama forward; it can create dramatic atmosphere. It can be used to focus on specific aspects, events, themes or issues, and the children or teacher may use narration either to tell a story or to provide structural links.

HOW (1)
Children act out the story of Hansel and Gretel while the teacher reads the narrative. The children take on the roles of the two characters and act out parts of the journey.

HOW (2)
In a drama about a volcano eruption, the teacher maintains a logic with narration by linking scenes: "And as the molten lava flowed down from the volcano the people gathered their belongings and ran as fast as they could from their homes."

HOW (3)
Different viewpoints are developed in which two or three characters present their view of the same situation. For example, in a drama about a child who is being bullied, the child narrates her version of the situation, the bully narrates her view and then the teacher gives her view.

At a key moment in the drama, selected by the teacher, children take on roles representing a different status, viewpoint or occupation. This is an effective convention for examining social interaction, opposing viewpoints, relationships and motives.

HOW (1)
In a drama about a toy shop all the children are in role as toys, talking about the big sale which is to start the next day. The teacher then reverses the roles and asks them to be parents and children attending the sale, talking about which toys they can afford and which ones they are thinking of buying.

HOW (2)
In a drama about a polluted sea, the children are first in role as fishermen who need the sea to survive. They then go into role as workers at the factory which is causing the pollution by pouring waste into the sea.

HOW (3)
In a drama about an unexploded bomb found underneath a school, the children a first in role as villagers who have to evacuate their homes for safety. They then go into role as the councillors who know that the bomb might destroy the whole village, but who are pretending that everything is under control.

Individual children, in role, speak their inner thoughts. The teacher freezes the drama and taps a chosen character on the shoulder to indicate that they should speak their thoughts or feelings within the drama. Thought-tracking slows the action down by allowing it to pause, enables the children to reflect on events and establishes what the characters are thinking or feeling at a specific moment in the drama - which may or may not reflect what they have been saying out loud. Direct questions can also be asked, to guide and focus the response - this is a particularly helpful approach with younger children.

HOW (1)
The children all have similar roles, such as children on a visit to the zoo. They see an elephant that is hurt and the teacher asks them to describe what they are feeling as they look into the elephant's area at the zoo.

HOW (2)
With the whole class in role as Goldilocks, miming her journey through the woods to visit the bear's house, the teacher freezes the action to ask individual Goldilocks whether they know they are doing wrong, and why they don't feel they should return to the path.

HOW (3)
In the middle of a drama about a mining accident, the miners of the village can be asked to say what they feel as they create a still-image at the pit-head, waiting for news.