Exploring Transition: A Wellbeing Drama Workshop
Change can be both exciting and unsettling, especially for children navigating key school transitions. This thoughtfully designed wellbeing workshop offers a creative, supportive space for pupils to reflect on “Important Endings” and “New Beginnings,” helping them to process change in a relaxed, imaginative way.
Through drama, storytelling, and movement, children explore how their thoughts and feelings shift when something in life changes, whether moving up a year group, joining a new class, or preparing for secondary school. The session gently guides them to recognise that while endings can feel emotional, every new beginning brings new possibilities and growth.
A Safe, Supportive Environment
The workshop has been carefully written to ensure all participants feel safe and comfortable. Children are never pressured to share personal feelings, they’re simply invited to contribute if they wish. Facilitators are encouraged to adapt each activity to meet the group’s needs and to celebrate every child’s unique voice, perspective, and pace.
Learning Through Imagination
Each activity weaves together creative exploration and therapeutic reflection. The session opens with a playful warm-up to build trust, cooperation, and laughter. Children create physical “letters” and “words” with their bodies, gradually uncovering the theme of the day: Important Endings and New Beginnings.
From here, the workshop moves into moments of deeper reflection. Using drama techniques such as still image and ensemble work, children explore scenes of change — a first day at school, saying goodbye to a friend, learning a new skill. Together they identify the emotions tied to those moments — anxiety, excitement, pride, or curiosity — and see how these feelings can shift over time.
Developing Emotional Tools
Central to the session is The Brain Sorter, a playful metaphor that helps children understand how they can manage their thoughts. By comparing their busy minds to an untidy bag full of useful and unhelpful items, pupils learn to “sort” their thoughts: deciding which to keep, which to leave behind, and which to throw away.
Later, they practise Stretching the Story , a simple but powerful technique that helps them reimagine challenges in a more positive light. By “stretching” their stories beyond the difficult beginning to a hopeful outcome, children begin to recognise their own resilience and capacity to adapt.
Reflecting on Growth
The session concludes with The Leavers’ Book , a creative reflection where pupils recreate a memory from their current year or school that they want to carry forward. Through still images, movement, and discussion, they consolidate what they’ve learned about change, confidence, and emotional wellbeing.
Facilitators encourage children to share what they’ve discovered with family and friends, extending the conversation about wellbeing beyond the classroom and nurturing a culture of openness and support.
Aims & Outcomes
By the end of the workshop, pupils will have:
Discovered the importance of their own “great stories”, the personal narratives that remind them of their strength and potential.
Reflected on their own experiences of transition and change.
Learned therapeutic techniques to manage thoughts and worries.
Strengthened key wellbeing qualities such as empathy, curiosity, and resilience.
Gained confidence in expressing and exploring emotions through drama.
We can deliver 2 x 2-hour long workshops to 2 selected classes of 30 children over the course of a day for Year 6 pupils.
To receive further information on this programme, including costings please fill out the form below.
