EXPRESS YOURSELF

In today’s world it’s so hard for kids to just be themselves.

Pressure comes from a number of avenues – friends, 

teachers, TV, family and unknowingly children are being told who to be to fit in. 

At Helen O’ Grady, along with our parents we strive to create 

an environment where students feel safe to be who they are and express themselves freely.

Children who don’t get the opportunity to express 

themselves often grow up not knowing their own potential.

 Teaching kids how to express themselves needs to happen as

 early in life as possible—before the peer-pressure at school and from the media really kick in.

Learning how to express themselves can build their self-confidence, help them develop smart, independent thinking and nurture their creativity.

Drama gives children and youth a healthy way to express emotions like sadness, anger, aggression, happiness and excitement.

The Kuils River Upper Primary group show their great range of emotions and expressions

Every child is unique and together we can look for ways to foster the artistic expression that’s already within them.

Teaching children how to express themselves is one of the most important life skills you can give them. When children feel comfortable expressing who they are, they can make their dreams come true!

Great start for Bellville

The week got off to a brilliant start as our Bellville school and studio students met their new teacher,  Ansuné van der Merwe.

Ansuné has always been passionate about all performing arts. 

So much so she started ballet at the age of 4! She went on to train in modern, Spanish and tap dancing.

She also loves singing and playing piano – we can’t wait to see her in action with the students at the year-end productions.

She had Drama as a school subject and was involved in various 

productions during her high school career. After graduating with a B.A. in Media & Writing and Law, Ansuné decided to follow her heart and pursue a career in the performing arts. She trained at the Waterfront Theatre School where she gained invaluable experience on stage.

She is currently working as a freelance actress and dancer while reading towards her ATCL Teaching Diploma in Speech and Drama through Trinity College.

While she enjoys performing, Ansuné is most excited to share her love for drama with others as a teacher. She believes drama is a powerful tool which allows students to find their voices, feel safe and loved, express their creativity and develop into confident individuals. It was a great start at Bellville yesterday and we can’t wait to see her and the students grow!

YOU'RE NEVER TOO OLD TO PLAY PRETEND

You’re never too old to play “pretend”.

But then, our Youth Theatre programme offers so much more than that! 

Our    Youth    Theatre classes feature a dynamic, developmental   drama   programme. 

While some of our students start with us at Kindy level and progress throughout the levels reaching the Youth stage, others start their journey here. No  matter where a student starts at,  our  curriculum  aims and works to improve their creativity,     confidence     and communication skills.  

High School comes with a number of challenges in and outside the classroom. What we offer students will also prepare them for a number of these. We've seen students benefit  in  particular when it comes to presentations,  public speaking  and  performance  talents. 

All  sessions  are designed to  allow  each  student to  express  themselves in a positive way.

RING RING!!!

A great addition to our curriculum this term is our telephone snippets.

These short activities focus on students’ vocal delivery. As the short play is performed as if conducting a telephone conversation it is crucial for students to put to practice all the elements taught during speech. Without being able to rely on facial expressions and gestures the voice is tested to new extents.

With a range of fun and interesting scenarios students get to play around with improv and ad-lib as this remains a key element in all our activities. The snippets deal with simple, everyday situations and give students some skills in dealing with these real-life scenarios.

 

De Tyger UP students dialing in on the action

They also practising opening, building and closing a narrative.

What a fun way to bring the lesson to a close.

Switch Drama On!

In this world taken over by technology and gadgets one might wonder why we bother with developing the creativity, confidence and communication skills of our children.

Some may even say face to face interaction is “dying out” and think a worse fate awaits theater.

At Helen O’ Grady we do our best to stay relevant, “with it” and connected to the times. That said, we believe our principles and core values are timeless.

Connection, stories, expression are things people long for. A wise man said, “No man is an island”. We may be able to survive on our own but boy what a boring time that’ll be.

Imagination and dreams are what drives us. Having something to strive for and reach for helps us get through our every day.

Reflections shape us and teach us.

Without these things, where would we be? Who would we be?

Well, all of these things are brought to you by DRAMA. Drama gives students the space to play, explore, discover, reflect and express. Drama is a gift and a safe place to go to grow.

Drama: the best invention yet ;)

Dynamically Verbal

If you do a search to see the meaning or definition of Verbal Dynamics you will often stumble upon the phrase: “The Words Come Alive!”

And how true! At least in the case of our Upper Primary Group’s Parent Day Verbal Dynamics

Every year teachers are excited to guide their students on this journey of verbal adventure.

While learning and rehearsing the verbal dynamics presentation students learn more about pace, volume, delivery details and other speech performance practices.

Pace plays a role in how speech is received and understood. You can change the meaning of a line or sentence simply by playing around with the speech. It’s so important to get the pace just right!

Volume control is another important aspect of any verbal showcase. Knowing when to drop into a stage whisper and combining it with projected exclamations gives the piece colour, shades and nuances.

Other practices include pronunciation, gestures and pitch. Every week the class will practise these and others as we bring together the features of a fun, interesting and lively verbal dynamics piece.

We hope you’ll be there to see the final product.

Speak to your teacher and keep your eyes on this page for your Parent Day dates.

Speak For Yourself

The speech elements of the Helen O’Grady curriculum prepares students for so many tasks and challenges presented throughout their school career.

Together we explore ways students can enhance their speech delivery, enunciation and eloquence. We also teach them new ways to express themselves using their voices.

Hebron Christian Academy LP students performing a poem: The Lion

Our speech curriculum covers projection, articulation, tone and resonance exercises. These are taught using fun speech lines accompanied by energetic actions, expressions and sometimes we’ll throw in an accent too.

De Tyger's LP students showing their verbal skills

Speech is a critical part of communication and expression. The lessons learnt during our drama programme will benefit our students well into their careers and life.

A Mime is Worth a Thousand Words

At Helen O’ Grady we love miming and teaching our students the art of miming.

What is mime and why do we teach it?

Mime is not simply mimicking, it’s recreation

When we mime we get to create illusions.

Mime challenges us to imagine a new world and create a new world for us as the performer as well as for our audience.

During mime students are learning to use their bodies and facial expressions.

They learn to communicate effectively without using sounds and words.

A Mime to Music is a sequence of miming to create and tell a story. It’s one of the favourite activities for our students to do and for teachers to show.

Paarl students performing The Marionettes

Rainbow Montessori students performing The Marionettes

Last week our students enjoyed a Mime to Music called The Marionettes. During this item students are paired together as operators and their beloved marionettes. This gave students a further challenge to move together as partners WITHOUT SPEAKING! Oh what a challenge, but oh what fun.

They rose to the occasion and we might just have to save this one for Parent Day ;)

TO BE OR NOT TO BE?

We are so excited and privileged to have Shakespeare as part of productions this year.

The work of William Shakespeare is such a integrate part of Theatre. His writing has been part of high school and University English Literature curriculum for years. What a wonderful treat that our Youth Theatre students gain additional exposure and even better, get to bring it to stage!

Shakespeare is renowned for tragedies, unapologetically so. While the themes of his work is central to studying Shakespeare during High School and at university, at Helen O’Grady we choose to focus on the stage craft. Without giving too much away, this year parents and friends can look forward to seeing students master art of mask work….

Somerset West's Youth group playing around with Tableus while rehearsing The Unmasking of MacBeth

A wonderful educational adventure awaits!

It is said that if a child can understand Shakespeare they can understand anything. His language is difficult to read and even more difficult to perform to a theatre full of friends and family. Students gain strength, courage and determination.

The way in which Shakespeare is performed at Helen O’Grady, using neutral masks, builds class unity as students rely on each other to carry the story and characters.

Very few have made the contribution to English literature that Shakespeare has. It is our hope that our Youth Theatre class will move on to make their own contributions to the world of language, literature and theatre.

Making dramatic friends

We’ve often spoken about the benefits of drama in terms of Creativity, Communication and Confidence. Those are the three key principles to all things Helen O’ Grady.

Often, however, we forget the benefits of drama for our children’s social skills.

Learning while playing different characters, realistic and not-so-realistic, gives students a great opportunity to explore parts of their personalities and find out more about who they are. In the Helen O’ Grady lesson students are also given the opportunity to do this while interacting with other students.

As students range across 2 or 3 years within the age group they get to interact with others who are older and they benefit from learning from others as well as students who are younger so they learn to mentor as well.

While the school classroom and break time play gives children the space they need to interact with other students, the drama lesson expands on this, throws in ample amounts of freedom and expression and students walk away with skill for stage AND the social space.

With opportunity comes responsibility

As parents and as teachers we have been entrusted with a great responsibility to give our children the best models and the best versions of who we are, and who they can be.

At Helen O' Grady we don't take it lightly that us as teachers have a portion of influence over our students. It is up to us to not only teach them our internationally renowned curriculum and equip them for performance on the various stages of life but also to show them respect, integrity and care. While we only see them for one lesson a week, we would like to ensure our parents that us as teachers do our utmost to positively influence our students. This all forms part of our mission to build their confidence, expand their creativity and equip them in communication.

We would like to thank all our parents for their continued support. Together we can bring out the best in our children and see them soar to great heights.

Build your confidence with Helen O' Grady

We've often heard and seen the expression: Outside your comfort zone is where the magic happens. Here at Helen O' Grady Drama Academy we couldn't agree more. And that is why our drama programme is key in the development of students' Creativity, Communication and building their Confidence.

Today we'd like to put a spotlight on the development of CONFIDENCE.

How does drama contribute to building the confidence of our students?

While students focus on reading, writing and calculating during the school day, they are encouraged and taught to speak and communicate with ease and expression during drama lessons. They are taken out of their comfortable spaces and taught to interact with others working towards the same goals and sharing and building ideas together. During drama they are also practising responding to daunting challenges and asked to present resolutions. These are but a few instances where drama allows students to exercise and build confidence in individual and group settings.

If your child is between the ages of 3 and 18 find a studio near you and join us for a free trial lesson.

If YOU are in this age group and would like to get involved, tell your parents about us, give us a call and we'll tell you more.

For now, find out more at our website, on Facebook or Twitter. 

Our very own pot of gold

Our first term at Rainbow Academy got off to a flyer and growth in both Lower and Upper Primary levels allowed us to split the Composite Primary class into two groups.

This split was not without growing pains as students took a bit of time to adapt to the new setting. But, as they say, the show must go on, and within the first two lessons either group were happily settled into their new timeslots and stepping into new roles.

We are very excited to see to which new heights this group will soar.

The students at Rainbow Academy are always keen for a show

Helen O' Grady takes drama to several schools around the Cape and this programme has proven to benefit students, teachers and parents. Educators are aware that the development of students' creative thinking is vital to their complete, holistic education. A drama programme like Helen O' Grady's is the perfect fit for all school set ups.

The programme is offered to all ages, all grades, fitting in with your school programme.

If you would like Helen O' Grady at your school find out more today.

Visit our website, like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter for updates and info.

Making a Scene

We've just about made it to the half way mark of Term 2. We've learnt so much while we also have so much more in store.

Every term brings something new to each age group. For the Lower Primary group, curriculum has been enhances with the addition of Scene Starters towards the end of each lesson.

During Scene Starters teachers provide students with the opening lines to short scenes, it is then left up to the students create and complete the scene. What we've seen so far is students exercising their creativity, using the skills taught during Group Improvs and working in teams to produce well-rounded stories.

The Helen O' Grady curriculum is used at all the Academies around the world. The drama principles taught remain the base and platform of each lesson with enhancements, like the Scene Starters, added with each term and each year to keep our students a step ahead.

Durbanville and Kenridge Lower Primary students
show their best side.

There's something for every child of every age. Contact us today for a free trial lesson.

In the mean time, go over to www.helenogrady.co.za for more information.

Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter

Be anyone we choose...

“A swirling skirt, a pirate’s hat,

Some baggy pants and things like that.

With a jacket, bow tie or high-heeled shoes

We can be anyone we choose.”

This short poem is performed at the end of the Lower Primary’s Whole Class Improv last week. This improv will be a favourite for the students and teachers as it reminds us of one of the great allowances of drama: to be anyone we choose.

Drama allows our students to, for a moment, put aside worries of home and school and dig into themselves for creativity, dreams and ideas. This space is an opportunity for each student to be their best and see themselves at their best. This is key to building their confidence and self-esteem and it is also key to their understanding of themselves and the wonderful things they are able to reach for and achieve.

Paarl Lower Primary class perform their
Whole Class Improv: What a Find!

What a privilege it is for us as teachers to be a part of these journeys and what each student grow.

If you would like to get involved please do get in touch with us:

Visit our website

Take a look at our Facebook page

Contact the office directly: 021 913 3635

One more speech

We recently shared with you our excitement as we prepare for the Speech elements of our Parent Day presentations. Speech is a very important part of what we do at Helen O‘Grady Drama Academy.

We’ve found that over the years, this part of the curriculum returns great results in our students’ overall development.

One may think that speech can be taught in isolation and this is true. Speech lessons will be effective in teaching students to communicate and they can take this skill into all aspects of their lives. However, when speech is combined with drama, they will not only learn effective communication, they will also be learning how to communicate in a creative and confident way.

Speech, as part of our drama classes explores the importance of projection, forward placing, effective use of lip, tongue and jaw as well as annunciation and other principles.

If you would like to know more please get in touch with us. Trial lessons are free and there is a class for every age group meaning your child could fit in immediately without a wait.

Visit our website or Facebook page for more.

We can’t wait to hear from you.

Speak Out!

As we build up to our Parent Day presentations our Lower and Upper Primary classes have been working hard towards their speech showcases.

For the Lower Primary groups this will take the form of a group poem. Our students in grades 1 through to 3 have been learning and will be performing a new poem specially written to show the skills they have acquired throughout their speech activities this term and this year.

In the Upper Primary classes students have enthusiastically been learning and rehearsing a Verbal Dynamics piece. This work uses poetry and drama to bring to life group speech activities.

Either group will do their best to show their parents the skills they have been taught throughout their time with Helen O’ Grady. These skills include projection, exclamation, volume control, resonance, to name a few.

We cannot wait to host our ever supportive parents at this term’s Parent Day.

Be sure to check out our Facebook page to make sure you don’t miss out.