I Used to Hate Teaching Theatre Sports, but now I love it

I think because as a student of drama myself I had always felt terrible doing improvisation in class or Speech exams, I approached Theatre Sports as a teacher with heaps of trepidation.

As a new fledgling drama teacher at a girl’s college, I was surprised to find a group of very enthusiastic Theatre Sports competitors who I was supposed to coach toward the local competitions. They LOVED it, and I hated it. They were fabulous at it and I knew I was hopeless at it (or I thought I was).

For those first few years I battled through. Thankfully these four girls had been well trained by the previous teacher and basically looked after themselves. They had also been set up as the leaders of the junior teams in the school. Awesome student-lead work going on. A little lesson there in cutting teacher workload, by the way. So, for a while, though I didn’t like it, I could get away with it being a part of my life because it was all sorted for me. The seniors trained the juniors and the I gave a few bits and pieces of advice to the seniors in preparation for the competition.

I learnt as I went, what the skills were for each game, the ways to prep for a round of competition and even what sort of ask-fors work for each game. I developed some great side coaching skills. I still groaned a little inside at the thought of it, but I became comfortable with Theatre Sports as a part of the Drama extra-curricular program of that school.

When I moved schools, Drama was completely new and Theatre Sports wasn’t a thing. I happily chose not to introduce it. Now I regret that.

While on a break from teaching when my children were young, our local Arts Community asked if I would start up some small performance classes and they asked me to start with Theatre Sports. I groaned, but said yes. 

And then I learnt to love Theatre Sports.

The thing was, the pressure was off with this class. We weren’t working towards a competition. They hadn’t had an amazing Theatre Sports coach before me. They didn’t have to be perfect and we just had fun.

The first two rules of our Theatre Sports class were:

1. Have fun

2. If things don’t go right: don’t sweat it. If possible brush yourself off and try to laugh at whatever didn't go right.

There were a couple of other rules about behaviour but the last rule was:

6. Remember rule #1 and have a laugh

And I think this was the key; All stressors were off for everyone.

The kids had fun learning each game and when things weren’t perfect, we laughed it off. And I learnt that actually I wasn’t bad at it, playing or coaching it and that Theatre Sports is fun. Out of it I created my Theatre Sports Lessons and Competition Bundle you can buy on Teacherpayteachers.

Plus, I saw the growth in my students. They crept into the room at the start of the term and walked tall and proud when they left at the end. Well, there may actually have been some skipping and giggling and calling out as they left, but you get my drift.

What did they learn besides the games? They learnt connection with the audience, thinking on their feet, expressiveness, characterisation, creativity, adaptability, storyline, offering and accepting.

Were they perfect at all of these things? Nope. But they were getting better each week.

In our final week we held a competition and invited a couple of parents to act as the judges with me. And the growth in skills here was even more profound. Maintaining role stepped up hugely, as did audience awareness and clarity of speech.

So, my take away from this drama club we started: Do Theatre Sports!!!! 

Oh, And definitely run a little competition to really develop their skills.

Make it low stakes, let them make mistakes, and have a laugh; but DO IT!!! The skills my students grew in during our class competition were great and they did it in a no stress environment. I would now use this to introduce students to drama, like at the beginning of a school year. I’m definitely thinking it would be good used as a filler with year 9s at the end of the year after assessments are done and reports are written.

If you’d like my formula for how I now teach a small unit of Theatre Sports and all the resources for running a mini competition with your class, you can check out this bundle here…