The spring term lockdown seemed much harder than the first lockdown. When we first locked down, everything was new and there was an element of excitement mixed with anxiety as we busied ourselves with learning new ways of teaching. This one felt different. The excitement and energy was lost, just replaced by another dose of anxiety. How could we be back here again?

Teaching turned back online, with voice over PowerPoints, YouTube videos, online live sessions and a myriad more different variations. Meanwhile, vulnerable and key worker children continued to be taught in schools. But soon talk was dominated by how schools would return. Here in England we all came back at the same time, in other parts of the UK they went for a more phased return.

Stats and posts

Between the months of January 2021 and March 2021 Burt’s Drama received 73,148 views from an average of 12,078 unique visits per month. Visits come from across the world, the five biggest being UK, USA, Australia, Canada and India.

During the spring term Burt’s Drama published 11 articles:

This summer you can expect to see more awesome articles covering a range of issues including assessment in drama, working with Shakespeare and dealing with difficult behaviour in Drama.

Other work

I continue to work beyond the virtual world of the Burt’s Drama website.

The Drama Teacher’s Handbook: A guide to creating and teaching a knowledge rich, practical and comprehensive Drama curriculum.

During the Spring term the book went through the editing process, which is now complete and we are just completing the finishing touches to it, including recording the audio book version! It is 200 pages of practical and accessible guides on reviewing and implementing a knowledge rich Drama curriculum with supporting downloadable resources. I hope that it will be able to get it out in time for the summer, when our attentions turn to planning the next academic years curriculum.

Oak National and National Drama.

It was a busy beginning to term and production went into full swing for the Oak National Drama lessons. It was so busy at one point I was recording a lesson a day for about two weeks! In total I contributed 20 lessons to the Oak National library of Drama lessons. I recorded lessons on Shakespeare, bringing text to performance and technical theatre. You can find the library of online Drama lessons here: Drama lessons for Key Stage 3 students – Oak National Academy (thenational.academy)

Drama and Theatre Magazine

Towards the end of the term I wrote two articles for the Drama and Theatre Magazine which will be published in the Summer edition of this quite awesome publication.

Resources

I continue to sell a few resources on TES, all of which continue to receive excellent reviews and feedback.

Online Courses

With the upcoming publication of The Drama Teacher’s Handbook, I hope to offer some online courses via Facebook and my website.