With 75% of UK state secondary schools signed up to the National Theatre Collection, ten additional productions will now be available to schools, colleges and educational establishments from today in partnership with Bloomsbury Publishing and ProQuest, part of Clarivate. These ten new productions will complete the second Collection, making 50 titles available to the education sector worldwide.

These are strange and sad times, and tough times for teachers. As soon as lockdown began I knew that my subject – drama – would be particularly vulnerable.

I guess, like all teachers, I panicked when I heard schools were shutting. But I think there’s a special kind of panic that teachers of practical subjects had – how on earth was I going to replicate my practical, collaborative, entirely group-work based drama studio when they were all sitting behind a computer, miles apart?

Following the announcement from the UK Government for all UK schools to close in light of the Coronavirus pandemic, the National Theatre Collection will now be available to pupils and teachers at state schools and state-funded further education colleges via remote access in partnership with Bloomsbury Publishing. Schools will be able to share log-in details with pupils to access resources at home during this period.

An experienced Drama teacher, Drew Morris will soon become assistant head Aureus School in Didcot, Oxfordshire. Here, he discusses self-doubt, leadership tactics, celebrating your colleagues’ successes, and the Way of the Beaver...

At St Andrew’s CoE School in Croydon, we are passionate about building strength, resilience and confidence in every student, in order to give them the best chance of success and fulfilment in life.

I’m a theatre practitioner with a background in inclusive practice. Finding ways to create new communities through Drama, and making diverse groups of performers central to the process, has taken me on some great journeys: making theatre with teenagers in Finland, circus artists in France, playwrights in New York City and toddlers in Tottenham.

“Thinker”, “Hero”, “Avenger”, “Pioneer”, “Lover”, “Gossip”, and “Fool” are all words that remind us of types of characters in movies, plays, books, and perhaps our own lives. These one-word character descriptions immediately paint vivid portraits in the reader’s mind and can be a useful way for pupils, age 8+, to bring characters to life.

We recently returned from our second Performing Arts tour of New York City. The academy and I believe in a global vision that supports the curriculum, and New York didn't disappoint! Many colleagues and 'teacher friends' from other schools often ask: “Why do you want to take your pupils there? That's a long way for a short time? Performing Arts?”

Gratnells, manufacturers and marketers of Britain’s best known and most widely-used range of storage systems and trays in schools, is adding a highly engineered modular staging system to its offer for the education sector. Created by renowned industrial designer Anthony Hill, Gratnells Stage is easy to assemble, robust and affordable for schools.