Blog!

This is Louie. Louie is five and with his infectious smile and sense of fun, he is a much-loved member of Pyjama Drama. When he first started, Louie was reluctant to share his ideas and sometimes sat at the side and watched the others play, but now he joins in with all our activities and LOVES to pretend.

We've all heard the phrase, 'Do as I say, not as I do' but children actually do both. They imitate behaviours they see AND hear, and that's why drama is the perfect preschool learning tool. When they take on different roles and communicate with different characters, children get a unique opportunity to observe the world around them in the safe and supportive environment of the drama.

Long gone are the days when parents or teachers worried that a child’s imaginary friend was proof that they had no ‘real’ friends or that they were displaying signs of psychological trauma or social deficiency. It’s now accepted that it is not uncommon, nor in itself worrying, for young children to have an imaginary pal.

We all love winning new business but there's something special about those who were around when you very first started. Park Lane Nursery in Welshpool was the very first setting I taught in, over 15 years ago, and they still have a Pyjama Drama class every single week!

This week we delivered our drama and imaginative play training for nearly 50 teachers as part of the Collective Learning Conference in Cardiff. Before we started, we asked everyone to consider how they felt about using drama and imaginative play and give themselves a score - 1, 2, or 3.

Quick quiz for you - if you answer, 'yes' to the following, you're most likely perfectly suited to being a Pyjama Drama franchisee...

Not all adults who work with children know how to play – do you agree? I believe that just as every child knows how to play, every adult (given that they too were once a child!) also knows. But, in part because the word ‘play’ is associated with children, all too often play breaks down because adults feel self-conscious, particularly when asked to engage children in imaginative play (which by its nature, dictates that we throw off our adult persona completely).

Yesterday, I decided to do the job of a franchisee as an experiment. I set myself the challenge of calling nurseries to 'sell' Pyjama Drama - the single thing franchisees say they dread most!

Drama is an inclusive learning tool and can be used to learn about and explore just about any topic, theme, or story you can think of. So, with World Cup fever on the rise, we’ve been visiting nurseries and primary schools to deliver drama workshops specially created to help children explore the ‘big’ feelings football fans experience.

Drama and imaginative play transport children to places where they can experience things that will probably never happen (like swimming with the mermaids or dancing on the moon) and experience the probable - like starting school, going to the dentist, or watching Wales win the World Cup!