Story Explorer:
Drama workshop
✓ Nursery - Year 6
✓ Led by a professional drama facilitator
✓ Literacy, Book Week
✓ Delivered in your school hall
Experience stories first-hand using the skills and techniques of professional theatre
Story Explorer workshops empower children from Nursery to Year 6 to explore popular books, traditional tales and fairytales first-hand, by embodying the characters and reimagining the story's world.
With the guidance of an expert drama facilitator, the children use drama exercises and activities to imagine and explore the characters, context and topics from new angles. During the sessions children look at the story as a whole before delving into the story’s setting and imagining how the characters move, feel and think.
The class-by-class sessions are differentiated for EYFS, KS1 and KS2. Younger children will get to experience the story with the facilitator in-role as one of the characters, while older children have the opportunity to recreate parts of the story and to discuss and debate the decisions of the characters. Each drama workshop can last between 35 and 90 minutes depending on your chosen tale, and we can work with children from EYFS to KS2.
Created by:
Abigail Rosser
Find out more about our creatives.
- We work with children in their usual classes.
- Sessions are 35 - 40 minutes for Reception, 35 - 60 minutes for KS1 and 40 - 90 minutes for KS2.
- We can work with up to six classes per day.
- To work with fewer classes we can visit for just an afternoon or morning session.
- To work with more than seven classes we can visit across multiple days.
- We will send you a suggested timetable when you enquire and we can work with you to create a timetable that works for your school day.
This year, World Book Day will be celebrated on Thursday 6 March 2025, and between 24 February and 14 March, we’ll be running workshops inspired by our specially chosen selection of children’s books. For more information, please head to our dedicated Book Week page.
Books are brilliant tools for tackling subjects such as bullying and wellbeing, while encouraging a positive and tolerant attitude among children. That’s why, for Anti-bullying Week 11 - 15 November 2024, we’re focusing on three specially chosen books: Ruby’s Worry by Tom Percival, Something Else by Kathryn Cave, and The Boy at the Back of the Class by Onjali Q. Rauf.
Use our quick enquiry form. to arrange a visit to your school. Just let us know which book(s) you'd like to work with and your preferred dates.
- To think critically about the story by experiencing it first-hand.
- To expand vocabulary and develop a stronger command of spoken English.
- To develop creative ownership and the imagination by working alongside a professional actor-facilitator.
- To explore different ways of communicating, both verbally and physically.
Watch us in action!
Get a flavour of the West End in Schools experience with our new workshop highlights video.
Book Options
by Serena Patel
LKS2, UKS2
Traditional Tale
Nursery, Reception, KS1, LKS2
by Roald Dahl
KS1, LKS2, UKS2
by Neil Gaiman
LKS2, UKS2
by Roald Dahl
KS1, LKS2, UKS2
Traditional Tale
Nursery, Reception, KS1, LKS2
Traditional Tale
Nursery, Reception, KS1, LKS2
Traditional Tale
Nursery, Reception, KS1, LKS2, UKS2
Traditional Tale
Nursery, Reception, KS1, LKS2
by Roald Dahl
KS1, LKS2, UKS2
by Charles Dickens
LKS2, UKS2
by Martin Waddell
Nursery, Reception, KS1
by Zanib Mian
LKS2, UKS2
Traditional Tale
LKS2, UKS2
Traditional Tale
LKS2, UKS2
by Julia Donaldson
Nursery, Reception, KS1
Traditional Tale
Nursery, Reception, KS1, LKS2,
Traditional Tale
UKS2
by Philip Pullman
LKS2, UKS2
by Julia Donaldson
Nursery, Reception, KS1
Traditional Tale
LKS2, UKS2
by Roald Dahl
KS1, LKS2, UKS2
Traditional Tale
Nursery, Reception, KS1, LKS2
by Edith Nesbit
LKS2, UKS2
by Marcus Pfister
Nursery, Reception, KS1
by Eric Carle
Nursery, Reception, KS1
Traditional Tale
Nursery, Reception, KS1, LKS2
by Michael Rosen
Nursery, Reception, KS1
by Malorie Blackman and Dapo Adeola
Nursery, Reception, KS1
by Julia Donaldson
Nursery, Reception, KS1
