Don Valley Drama Days Delve into DBA!

On the 23rd and 24th November students from Bentley High Street, Bentley New Village and Sunnyfields Schools came to Don Valley School Library to take part in day-long drama workshops based on this year’s long-list titles. As always, these events proved to be a great introduction to the books, and by the end of each afternoon, every student had at least one title they were dying to read, as can be seen by the comments below;

Joshua from Sunnyfields – ‘I would love to read Weird as I have found out more about it’.

Joe from Don Valley – ‘After this experience I would like to read all of the books we covered but probably The Lady in the Tower most because it is my kind of story line’

Devon from Bentley High Street – ‘I want to read Soul Trade and Nathaniel Wolfe because they both seem to have lots of tension in them’

Chloe from Bentley New Village – ‘I would like to read the book Weird because it sounds interesting and really funny.’

The day itself started with an introduction by Dave and a short talk on the process of writing a book. He moved swiftly on to the long-list books, and began talking about them, either reading short extracts and leading group discussions, or giving an outline of the plot and main characters. For each activity, the students had a choice of two or three books to work from, some were short scripts, and some were suggestions for scenes to show, with the emphasis on physical drama. Any initial nerves were soon dispelled as they spread themselves out around the library to practice their pieces, and it was great that almost from the start the students mixed themselves up so that each group had students from at least two different schools working together.

The students liked the opportunity to mix that this way of working gave them;

Amy from Sunnyfields – ‘I enjoyed the drama because you worked in mixed groups with people you didn’t know and made new friends’

Megan from Don Valley – ‘I enjoyed working with different people to who I normally work with and putting lots of ideas together to produce a ‘masterpiece of drama.’

Josh from Bentley High Street – ‘the thing I most enjoyed was doing the drama and coming to Don Valley to work with different schools’

Lauren from Bentley New Village – ‘I learned how to act out parts of a book and to work with people I don’t know and get along with them’

The students were able to add extra characters if they so wished, as long as these were in keeping with the storyline of their book, and we had some really interesting and creative interpretations! One group, working on the scene from Frozen in Time where the children first come across the piece of metal sticking up out of the ground, used one of their number to play the piece of metal gradually being revealed as the children dig. This was ingenious and very effective. There were also excellent interpretations of the overbearing father in Cookie, really convincing scenes from The Lady in the Tower with horses and a trumpet fanfare, and some truly sinister versions of the weird shopkeeper, Mr Grey from Soul Trade. Nathaniel Wolfe, with its setting amidst the smog of Victorian London, brought some excellent physical drama, with girls in one group playing the swirling fog, as did Tales of Terror from the Black Ship, where we saw some lovely ‘freeze frames’ in the performances. All of the students did very well, and by break time on both days everyone present had gone up and ‘showed’ their work to the whole group.

Many of the students spoke about how their confidence had grown as a result of the day:

Molly from Bentley New Village Primary – ‘I am confident in acting in front of people now’

Abie from Don Valley – ‘I have achieved confidence as I went up to the year sixes and have proven I have good ideas while we were practising’

Olivia from Sunnyfields – ‘I think I achieved not to be scared to perform in front of people who are older than me’

Joe from Bentley High Street – ‘I have achieved today being confident about doing drama in front of other people and changing my voice in drama’

The comments I have quoted are typical of the feedback received from all the students who took part over the two days. I think they show conclusively that the workshops were a great success. I personally enjoyed them very much, except possibly for Zack’s all too convincing portrayal of a cross librarian telling everyone to be quiet!! (Based on the library scene in Football Academy, and obviously not in any way depicting a librarian he might know…!) Possibly my favourite comment was by Alex from Bentley High Street who at the end of the day wanted ‘to be more volunteery and join in more’.

I think Ethan from Sunnyfields spoke for staff and students when he said ‘I enjoyed the whole day’!

Lyn Hopson,
Librarian, Don Valley School
Secretary, Doncaster Book Award

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