Drama CPD and INSET

Bring (even more) creativity and active learning into your school curriculum! Our award-winning Drama CPD training is available now for individuals, staff training days or even bootcamp workshop weeks! The content is ideal for teachers and teaching assistants with a focus on cross-curricular strategies, literacy or specific topics.

 

Staff Training – Face to Face

We are once more delivering our award-winning CPD face-to-face in schools. Contact us through the form below to check availability.

Online

We also deliver training online through a secure interactive platform (including videos with practical examples) and downloadable resources.

Our flagship course is The Inspiring Drama Teacher course which is available for individuals or for a specified group of teachers. Contact us for a ‘test-drive’ or to discuss presentations tailored to the needs of your school.

The online course enables you to work through the modules and videos at your own pace. Download superb lesson plans and info-sheets and join our monthly live Zoom sessions to dive deeper into drama teaching and share ideas with like-minded professionals (available to watch afterwards)

For fees or enquiries, call us on 0797 321 7876 or complete the contact form below.

All the world’s a stage…

Drama Resource would love to hear from you!

Awards

Our Power-Up: Drama Games for Language Teaching online course was awarded the prize for the Best Resource for Teachers 2018 by the English Speaking Union.

The Inspiring Drama Teacher online course was shortlisted for the Outstanding Drama Education Resource in the Music and Drama Awards 2020.

International

David Farmer presents workshops abroad at universities, international schools and conferences. Recent destinations include Antibes, Nice and Paris (France), Amsterdam (Netherlands), Košice (Slovakia), Colorado Springs (USA), Buenos Aires (Argentina), Ankara and Diyarbakir (Turkey), Johannesburg (South Africa), Lillestrøm (Norway), Porto (Portugal), Yverdon (Switzerland) and many others.

Thank you a million times for the great ideas you shared with us! Not only did we enjoy every minute of the webinars, but we also got a wealth of interesting ideas which we’ll be able to apply to our teaching. The sessions were very well organized and all the activities and ideas were practical and absolutely relevant to our needs.

Poppy Georgakellou Arsakeia-Tositseia Schools, Greece, November 2022
 Poppy Georgakellou

Just wanted to say thank you so much for that training, it was brilliant. Everybody said how much they enjoyed it. We will definitely be using lots of those strategies in future lessons!

Annabel Brown Crescent Primary School (October 2022)
Annabel Brown

‘Thank you so much for everything. We are all very excited to try out some of these ideas in the classroom – we really took so much from the session.’

 

Heather Partington Talavera Junior School, Aldershot (September 2021)
Heather Partington

For two years online, I have not yet come across such an interesting workshop as yours was yesterday. I have a drama group and will be doing a workshop with your ideas on Thursday. I left your workshop fulfilled because I came across what I need in the work. Thank you. Best greeting from a little village in Croatia.

Katarina 
 Katarina

Thank you for an absolutely brilliant session today! The audience was in awe and we topped the attendance limit so that we had to increase the size of the room to let more attendees in 😄huge success, thank you for your great contribution from everyone here. All best wishes, and thanks a million again, it was a joy to work with you!

Federica Fiorillo and Mike Riley Macmillan Education (March 2020)
Federica Fiorillo and Mike Riley

Thank you for sharing your gifts and wisdom with us in such an effortless way.

Jeff Schmidt, Deputy Head,  Dolphin School, October 2019
Jeff Schmidt, Deputy Head,

All the units were wonderfully arranged, with respect to the students, clear instructions, thoughtful tips, expanding material. The instructions and material were so explicit that it was like I was trained in person. Moreover, the fact that I can turn to the instructions and the videos again and again, give the course great efficiency.

Theodora Nakou Drama Power Up, January 2019
Theodora Nakou

Thank you so much for delivering an exciting, productive and valuable series of workshops.

Michael Clack, Headmaster Oporto British School, Portugal (April 2012)
Michael Clack, Headmaster

David spent the day at our school with a focus on Drama across the Curriculum within the EYFS and Key Stage 1. The day was filled with practical activities. We hardly sat down! David ensured we had the theory to back up the practical by providing appropriate links. My staff left with an abundance of activities to draw upon and had a renewed energy to take back into their classroom. I would highly recommend a day with David!

Geraldine Dunkerley, Headteacher Darwin Teaching School Alliance, Shrewsbury (March 2016)
Geraldine Dunkerley, Headteacher

Thanks so much for giving us a real lift of energy and excitement about teaching on a cold and dreary January evening! I am so excited to try out Whoosh! today and 1,2,3 and am already planning next week’s lessons with the Imaginarium and many others!

Ellen Savill, Assistant Head of Pre-Prep Dulwich Preparatory School, London (January 2017)
Ellen Savill, Assistant Head of Pre-Prep

Excellent CPD, money well spent and a wealth of ideas to take away… Thank you!

Toni Browne, Headteacher St Peter's Primary School, Folkestone (March 2017)
Toni Browne, Headteacher

You inspired and challenged us to be better teachers. You taught us how effective drama can be to get our students’ attention and make our lessons fun for them. You gave us new teaching tools and helped us feel we can make a difference in our students’ lives. Thank you.

Fátima Silva English Teacher, Agrupamento de Escolas Dr. Guilherme Correia de Carvalho, Seia, Portugal (April 2017)
Fátima Silva

Teachers have been having a go at lots of the activities you ran through and the classrooms are really buzzing!

Dominic Hughes, Headteacher Springwell Junior School, Hounslow (January 2018)
Dominic Hughes, Headteacher

drama
cpd

People do Drama CPD for all kinds of reasons

  • Share ideas and best practice with like-minded peer professionals
  • Develop expertise, confidence and skills
  • Find new approaches to bring lessons to life
  • Try out fresh ideas in a supportive environment
  • Learn from a leading expert in the field
  • Gather practical ideas to implement in day-to-day teaching
  • Refreshing and creative break from usual routine
  • Clarify understanding of drama games and strategies
Drama in the Primary Curriculum

The focus is on the use of drama strategies to create interactive learning opportunities across the primary curriculum, including literacy, history and science. Approaches used include freeze frames, role-play, hot-seating, ten-second objects, thought-tracking and more. An opportunity can be given for staff to discuss and try out approaches linked to their current or upcoming topics and themes.

Drama for Improving Literacy

The course focuses on inspirational games and strategies for improving writing, speaking and listening skills. These engaging activities involve every child in the creative process and include lively word and storytelling games and collaborative activities for developing locations, characters, genres and situations through simple drama structures.

Drama for Language Teaching

Drama games and strategies can be used to engage students in language learning through lively and fun activities. They can be adapted to teach language at all levels as well as developing teamwork, self-confidence and communication skills. The approaches can be used to complement a wide range of themes, literature and course materials.

Teaching Shakespeare to Children and Young People

We outline a practical approach for teaching Shakespeare to children and young people from key stage 2 upwards. We offer a range of enjoyable and accessible drama games and strategies that will quickly get students involved in the world of the play, exploring character, language and staging ideas through practical methods. A range of script extracts are used to demonstrate how the approaches can be used with any of Shakespeare’s plays.

Directing Plays with Children

This stimulating course is suitable for anyone who wants to learn about directing plays with children and young people or is looking for new ideas and guidance. Author and director David Farmer outlines a creative approach to directing. He explores how drama games can be used to develop characters, extend acting skills and create imaginative stagings of scenes.

We are really embracing the drama and are holding a staff meeting this week to celebrate what we are doing and looking at how we can use the activities you taught us most effectively in our lessons. We are going to keep class portfolios of evidence of our drama and how this has impacted positively on children’s vocabulary and writing. I’ll keep you posted!! I have already seen some lovely writing come out of the drama activities for ‘The Magic Box’.

Sarah Goodwin

Literacy Leader, St Peter's Primary School, Folkestone

The INSET day was pitched just right (levels, ideas and timing) for us. There were lots of practical fun ideas for all sorts of lessons. They were easy to remember; easy to build into lessons and worthwhile.

Adrian Downie

Director of Studies, Ashfold School, Buckinghamshire

  • I liked the fact that the ideas could be used across the curriculum.
  • Really enjoyable, made using drama seem like a fantastic way to support and enhance learning.
  • The various practical ideas were amazing! I will be using them over the next few terms in my planning and teaching.
  • You have de-mystified drama for everyone.
  • Really good fun – and a chance to see colleagues in a new light.
Teaching Staff

St John's Primary School, Bethnal Green, London

Your twilight INSET more than fulfilled expectations. Staff were intrigued and engaged throughout. The calm purposeful atmosphere which you created was empowering and a teacher who maintained that she would only ever watch from the sidelines was found participating in a physical piece of drama in front of an audience. Miracles can happen! From Primary specialists to Secondary teachers of Classics, Modern Languages and Music (teachers whose pupils ranged in age from 6 to 18) – everybody found something to take away and think about.

Bridget Ogley

Saint Augustine's Priory, Ealing, London

David says: “I recently ran a whole-day INSET training course for teachers and teaching assistants at a Primary School in London. I delivered the session to 25 participants and we began by looking at how and why drama can be used to teach across the curriculum, following on with some fun drama games. I demonstrated a range of drama strategies based on an Evacuees lesson, including the technique of Open and Close which went down a storm.”

“After lunch we used traditional stories as a way of looking at role play. Teacher in Role proved to be easier than some teachers may think! We explored how paintings and photographs of people can be used as a way into improvisation and still images can be used for exploring stories for younger children.”