Drama Games: A Resource For Teachers

Practical drama activities to energise, focus and develop your students

Why are drama games important?

Drama games and activities allow students to have fun whilst growing in confidence and learning valuable theatrical skills. Within the structure of a Drama or English class, drama games can be used to focus students’ attention, facilitate team building, deployed as a tool for developing communication and receptive skills, or simply to foster enjoyment of drama.

Drama games: a resource for teachers

This free resource groups together the most useful drama games for use with Key Stage 3 and above, as suggested by drama teachers. We've included newer games, and old favourites that are popular with students and teachers.

Browse the range of drama exercises below, including warm-ups, games aimed at encouraging team building, improvisation and devising, or activities designed to improve students’ understanding of texts. Each section contains handy, downloadable 'how-to-play' PDFs and links to videos of many of the games in action.*

Games that are more inclusive of any students with movement issues are highlighted, along with those which can be adapted easily to be socially distanced, if needed. We’ve also provided links to three online sources of scripts, which you can browse for inspiration when considering a text to introduce to your students. We hope you enjoy using this resource to help deliver engaging sessions and to develop your students' appreciation of situations and emotions, as well as their understanding of specific texts.

Introducing group assessment with Trinity drama

At Trinity, we believe that creating dramatic work in groups is a fundamental part of an actor’s development. This is why the majority of our drama syllabus specifications have pair, group and In Production exams as options.

Developing collaborative communication skills fundamental to group performance work will help to prepare students for their wider lives, further education and employment.

Find out more in our free Guide to Group Assessments

The guide outlines:

  • All the options for non-solo drama exams with Trinity 
  • How group exams work across Trinity’s range of ‘from 2020’ syllabus specifications
  • How group exams contribute to whole-school outcomes, helping raise the profile of drama in your school
  • How all students taking part in school productions can have their achievements recognised with our ‘In Production’ exams
  • Details of funding and support available to you

* Trinity does not endorse the practice or delivery of the organisations featured in the linked videos. The links are included for illustrative purposes only, to support teachers delivering the activities for the first time; they are not intended to be a replacement for instructions given by a teacher or group leader in work with students. 

Drama games and activities

WARM-UPS

Exercises to warm-up or cool-down

Warm-up activities are a great way to energise the group, release any tension and limber up ahead of a lesson or performance.

TEAM BUILDING

Games that focus on unity and collaboration

These activities are designed to build community and a sense of trust within the group, supporting the team-work skills of students.

IMPROVISATION

Activities to hone students’ creativity

An excellent way to explore ideas and develop performance skills. With improvisation you never know where the game might lead.

DEVISING

Group collaboration in response to an idea

Games that encourage students to get inventive and deeply consider characters, dilemmas and emotions from a stimulus.

TEXTS

Using drama to make texts relatable

Exercises to further develop understanding and interpretation of a text, including character and dramatic tension.

SCRIPTS

Text suggestions for teachers

From Trinity’s free online Anthology to the National Theatre’s Connections plays, check out the our top three resources for text suggestions.

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