National Theatre to host theatre making course for teachers

A two-day Theatre Making course for teachers will be held at the National Theatre in London on 17th and 18th March.

The course will provide a thorough introduction to making theatre with Primary aged children, and cover many aspects of approaching the task of directing a production.

The project is designed for teachers who school Year 5 and 6 students.

Emil and the Detectives: connecting schools

The Theatre Making course comes on the back of a new project launched by the National Theatre called Playmakers.

The Playmakers project is available to all state Primary schools across the UK, and aims to connect learning across the curriculum with an end-of-year school production of Emil and the Detectives.

Starting after February half-term, participating classes will read the book Emil and the Detectives by Eric Kastner and receive a scheme of work with creative activities, and questions relating to each chapter. 

Teachers will then be able to select from a wide range of cross-curricular lesson plans to deliver with their class which fully explore the story, the setting and the characters.

Areas linking to the curriculum include Literacy, History, Geography, PE, and Art and Design.

During the second half of the summer term pupils will draw on this learning as they start rehearsals for their school production of Emil and the Detectives.

Schools will be provided with training, a director’s guide, a specially adapted script by Carl Miller (with original songs), backing tracks and the relevant performance licence as part of the package.

The final production will take place at the end of the summer term.

Booking information

To book to be part of the Playmakers project, teachers should contact Jo Carey, Primary and Early Years Coordinator at the National Theatre on 020-7452 3308 or e-mail jcarey@nationaltheatre.org.uk.

For further information visit www.nationaltheatre.org.uk.