Work with us: Drama Facilitators for Primary Schools
Drama Facilitators for Primary Schools
Our applications are always open however we will not be processing new applications until Spring 2025.
Every child’s imagination should be inspired by the arts. West End in Schools' mission is to use the skills of the professional theatre to provide highly creative cultural experiences for children which they will remember forever.
Using our experience as an Olivier Award winning production company, we bring together performers, creatives, industry specialists and teaching artists to provide highly creative cultural experiences for children which they will remember forever.
Each year we deliver dance, drama and Shakespeare workshops and perform pantomimes in over 1,000 schools. Our work is primarily with mainstream state schools in communities across the country.
About you
We are always looking for people that reflect our diverse communities, to help us work in new ways and become more relevant to the schools and children we serve. We recognise that this is not yet present in our current workforce, so we particularly welcome and encourage applications from people from diverse backgrounds and life experiences.
We’re looking for brilliant facilitators who want to inspire the next generation. You will have an infectious passion and enthusiasm for the arts, and for storytelling.
You can be either a full time facilitator, or an actor or director with facilitation skills.
You must either have a recent enhanced DBS check or be happy for us to submit you for one.
You will need good time keeping, planning and organisation skills.
You will deliver the workshops on your own so need to be a confident and engaging representative of the company to the Head Teacher and other school staff.
Helpful but not required:
If you can drive that is brilliant - but it is not essential
About the workshops
Our primary drama workshops, devised by our Creative Director Abigail Rosser, allow children to explore their chosen topic from a new perspective, using drama games and theatre techniques to take a walk in someone else’s shoes.
For all of our ‘Explorer’ style workshops, you will work class-by-class delivering a range of games and theatre exercises. All of the activities are provided for you in a detailed plan and training is provided.
We offer some workshops which build to a performance involving every class at the end of the day (Shakespeare Today, and the full versions of Our World, Our Future and Poetry and Poppies).
You can read about the content of the workshops and how we describe them to schools on the drama pages of our website.
A typical day as a Facilitator
Travel to a school which could be some distance from home - perhaps staying nearby the night before.
Arrive at a school at 8.30am, start teaching at 9am and finish at 3.15pm. There is usually at least an hour break for lunch.
Lead workshops for class groups of approximately 30 children, throughout the day.
You will be working with children from 4 to 11 years (Reception to Year 6 in England) and occasionally with Nursery.
Other strands of workshops we offer
In addition to primary school drama workshops we have two other strands of work: dance workshops in primary schools and Shakespeare workshops in secondary schools.
If you are highly skilled in more than one area please apply once to your favoured strand (ie dance, primary drama or secondary drama) and note your other areas of expertise on your application. We tend to start new facilitators in one area so that learning our workshops is more manageable. If we think it would be helpful we will talk to you about other strands of work you’ve indicated during your application process and with your agreement may move your application across.
Pay and terms
Contract: Freelance.
Rate of Pay:
Workshops paid at £165 per day or £100 per half day.
We pay your fees and reimburse expenses on a weekly basis with no need to invoice us for your fee.
Training paid at London Living Wage, paid once you first deliver a workshop.
All travel and accommodation expenses are reimbursed from your door to the school, and to attend training if travelling long distances.
Locations: We deliver work in schools across the UK and are looking for facilitators in all regions.
Workshop delivery dates: Workshops are available all year round
Flexibility for professional auditions booked via your agent: Many of our drama facilitators are actors in between performing jobs and need to be able to audition. We offer complete flexibility for auditions, and ask that in return you do your best to accept work from us at short notice if we ask you to when someone has withdrawn due to an audition.
How to apply
You are welcome to apply at any point during the year to be a drama facilitator. We will keep your application on file and will be in touch in Spring 2025 when we are next recruiting, or sooner if work becomes available.
If successful at application stage, you will be invited to audition in London, Manchester or Bristol, where you will lead a drama game/activity of your choice with the other auditionees. This is an opportunity for us to meet you, see you in action - and for you to find out more about us!
Following the auditions, we will invite successful facilitators to attend paid training days in London or Manchester.
Faciliator audition dates:
London - Wednesday 22 January 2025
Manchester - Thursday 23 January 2025
Bristol - Friday 24 January 2025
Facilitator training dates:
London - Tuesday 11 & Wednesday 12 February 2025
Manchester - Tuesday 18 & Wednesday 19 February 2025
Apply now
Please fill in our application form and the equal opportunities form which will follow it, which is kept separate from your application.