One of the encouraging features of the Curriculum and Assessment Review is the reappearance of drama within the English curriculum. At the English and Media Centre, we have long championed both the study of drama texts and the thoughtful use of drama approaches in English classrooms through our CPD and publications. We also recognise, however, that drama can feel less familiar or less comfortable for some teachers. This piece offers an invitation: to be open to the possibilities offered by bringing drama into your English classroom, even if you are currently not a fan.
In recent years, the pressure to sharpen curriculum aims, prioritise measurable outcomes and respond to accountability demands has often pushed drama to the edges of English teaching. Yet there is a strong and growing body of evidence that points to drama’s value in developing literacy, language, oracy and inclusive classroom practice. If the aims of the 2025 Curriculum and Assessment Review are to create an English curriculum that is meaningful, broad and inclusive, then drama deserves a secure place within it.
In English classrooms, drama can be used to: help students understand drama texts as works written to be performed; support engagement with and analysis of non-drama texts; explore ideas, language and structure before writing; enable students to write their own drama texts.
Research suggests that drama offers something distinctive as a pedagogy (Cleeve Gerkins, 2014). Theories of embodied cognition remind us that learning is shaped by physical experience as well as mental processing. Drama’s use of movement, gesture and role-play allows students to make abstract ideas more concrete. By stepping into roles and situations, students experience for themselves how texts, characters, tensions and dilemmas are constructed. At the same time, drama allows students to step back out of role, gaining distance and perspective. This movement between immersion and reflection helps students notice layers of meaning, writers’ choices, audience and structure.
When students dramatise a narrative, a play or a character’s arc, they are doing much more than acting. They are exploring cause and effect, motivation, theme and structure from the inside. These experiences can lead to richer mental representations, which students can then draw on in reading and writing. Carefully planned drama activities ask students to make decisions, justify interpretations and respond to others. Over time, this supports a shift from initial, surface-level responses to more confident, thoughtful and analytical engagement with texts.
Drama can deepen access to both canonical and contemporary texts, sustain interpretive talk and give students meaningful reasons to write. Spoken language is central to English, underpinning reading, writing, thinking and participation. Drama naturally places oracy at the heart of learning. Dialogue, negotiation, responding in role, peer feedback and rehearsed talk are integral to drama practice.
Drama creates the conditions for talk that is purposeful, collaborative and intellectually demanding. Students explain ideas, listen to alternative viewpoints and refine their thinking aloud. Approaches such as hot-seating, teacher-in-role, freeze-frames and conscience alley provide structured ways to explore texts through talk. (National Drama statement on Drama and Oracy)
Oral rehearsal, repeatedly shown to support stronger writing, becomes a natural part of the learning process when drama is used. It can enhance imagination, encourage students to consider different perspectives, sharpen an awareness of audience and increase motivation to write. (Leeds Beckett University)
Drama is also valued for its capacity to engage a wide range of learners. For students who find traditional classroom talk or extended writing challenging, drama offers different ways in. Because it draws on visual, physical and verbal modes, drama can lower barriers for students with SEND, EAL learners and those lacking confidence with print. Research in inclusive classrooms suggests that drama can build language skills, confidence, engagement and a sense of belonging.
In a system still working towards greater equity and access, drama offers a practical and flexible way to support deep engagement with texts and ideas, helping more students to feel that English is a subject in which they can participate fully.
So why does drama sometimes feel difficult to use? For many teachers, it is simply unfamiliar. English classrooms are often organised around quiet, individual or pair work and carefully managed discussion, and drama can feel noisy or unpredictable by comparison. Yet drama does not necessarily require large spaces, theatrical expertise or elaborate performances. Many drama approaches are very doable for the average English teacher and well suited to ordinary classrooms. Hot seating requires only a chair and a willing volunteer (who can be the teacher) to be questioned in role as a character. Role playing a situation before writing to kickstart students’ ideas and rehearse dialogue can be done seated (although it’s better when students are allowed to move around).
If English is to remain a broad and balanced subject which nurtures language, literature, communication and critical thinking, then we need to embrace drama and all the ways in which it can enrich what we already do.
Other EMC Curriculum Think Pieces
EMC Thinking About Curriculum - An Introduction
The Future of English Language at KS3 + KS4
Standard(ised) English - An EMC Think Piece
Talk in the New National Curriculum
Against Mandatory Diagnostic Testing
