How does it benefit my child to attend drama class?

From the age of three when we start with our Kindy classes, children need  social interaction skills, confidence and self-esteem. This is exactly what the fun filled programme offers children. It develops clear speech, fluent delivery, improvisation and dramatisation skills, as well as the all-important social interaction skills. Through role-playing and creative games, we encourage kids to express themselves and their emotions, be inquisitive and share information confidently.

 As the children get older and progress to the Lower Primary (5 – 8 years) and Upper Primary (9 – 12 years), we hone these skills to enable the students to become confident, articulate communicators, and capable and creative performers. We use a wide range of creative activities including speech, creative movement and improvisation for the younger group, and as they get older and more experienced, we include snippets and scene starters.

At the end of each year they utilise all the skills acquired during the year to create a short, scripted production, which is performed, for parents and friends.

 By the time they reach our dynamic, theatre arts Youth Theatre classes (13 – 18 years), our programme starts putting more emphases on performance, although the developmental side of the program still remain very important. Some students join to acquire effective communication skills that could give them the edge in their future careers.

Others join with the hope of pursuing a career in the theatre arts. We start preparing students for a more competitive theatre arts environment covering amongst many other aspects, spontaneous improvisation, voice production, small group improvisation with specific directives, mini scripts, character analysis, open-ended duologues, theatre games, radio plays, quick fire dialogues, monologues and structured scenes.

The Youth Theatre group, as with Lower and Upper Primary, have the opportunity to show their advanced skills at the end-of-year production.

 “If young people are having fun when they are learning, the chances are that the skills taught will remain with them forever. Never has it been as important as it is now to set children up for life and prepare them with the life-skills so needed today and in the future.”   - Juliet Jordaan (Principal, Helen O’Grady Drama Academy Midrand & Pretoria)