Nursery World - Something for everyone

One of the difficulties of organising drama sessions is pitching activities at the right level for mixed groups. In the second of his series, youth theatre organiser Alex Marker tackles the problem. I am quite fortunate that most of the drama groups I have taught are drawn from a single, or perhaps two combined consecutive school years. I find this quite useful when planning a session because I know that, broadly speaking, I am tailoring the material to a group who are at a reasonably similar stage in their development.

I am quite fortunate that most of the drama groups I have taught are drawn from a single, or perhaps two combined consecutive school years. I find this quite useful when planning a session because I know that, broadly speaking, I am tailoring the material to a group who are at a reasonably similar stage in their development.

However, this has not always been the case! I remember one session when I was working on shopping improvisations with mixed groups of nine- to 11-year-olds. I came to a sub-group who were explaining to me their scene based around a magic carpet ride and a castle. All very well I thought, as I started to ask them about the characters they were playing. Suddenly, one 11-year-old piped up, 'Alex, I want to be a transexual!' The room fell silent. It was one of those brief moments where it feels like the world has frozen and everyone is watching you to see what your reaction will be. What should I do, I thought? Censor the 11-year-old, do something to distract the others? To be honest it wasn't the idea that worried me, more what the nine-year-olds were going to say to their mums.

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