Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.

Everyone loves a story - especially a story well told. To encourage learning all primary teachers should consider the creative art of telling a story, as well as developing a variety of ways of interacting through the process. Drama teaching has a range of strategies for interactive work, a genre uniquely adaptable to the new curriculum's Historical, Geographical and Social Understanding theme. Primary History 48 had Drama and History Teaching as its theme, it should be consulted in conjunction with this article (Historical Association, 2008)

Teachers who have little or no drama or story telling training, and rarely observe drama lessons have to be brave! They need to take small, safe steps to develop their own practice grounded in the creative approaches to learning involved.

The Rose Report (2009) has given a new emphasis to the integration of the core humanities subjects. Primary teachers have a green light to experiment with creativity and drama, but how to make those first safe steps? Some may feel awkward in being a different type of teacher. Despite Fines and Verrier's pioneering work (1974) teachers still rarely use drama in their teaching. How can they incorporate a stimulating and rewarding teaching approach for them and their pupils?