It's the Final Count down in Milnerton!

Students at our Milnerton Studio in our primary aged classes are getting ready for their presentation day coming up on the 3rd of June. Our Youth Theatre students will similarly be involved in their performance.

Half way through the year all family and friends are given the opportunity to come and see first hand what it is the children do in our classes. We present a cross section of work that the students have been involved in over the course of the first half of the year.

Our primary classes will present a range of work from speech work, improvisation, plays and mimes with the addition of scriptwork for our Upper Primary. Our Youth Theatre students present a themed, concise and workshopped piece which is quite a feat for the short space of time we give them.

This is an especially important venture for our first time students as not only does it enable them to perform in a positive and successful venture but allows them to experience playing in front of an audience before the theatre production at the end of the year. This is not to say that there is a diminished experience for our returning students but rather a learning and growing process as we see so much personal development in all of them over the course of a year.

Our classes are run weekly at the Milnerton Library hall on Monday afternoons;
3-4pm    GrR-3
4-5pm    Gr4-6
5-6pm    Gr7-12

Contact nastassja@helenogrady.co.za to find out how you  can become part of our awesome organisation and build skills for the future.

Creative Arts- the Important Emerging 21st Century Skill Set

An article read recently indicates that as we move toward a more technology driven future, the creative arts and communication skills are going to become far more important to humans, especially within the education sector. 

As Andreas Schleicher, a world leading education expert explains, 

"I would say, in the fourth industrial revolution, arts may become more important than maths. We talk about ‘soft skills’ often as social and emotional skills, and hard skills as about science and maths, but it might be the opposite,” he said, suggesting that science and maths may become ‘softer’ in future when the need for them decreases due to technology, and the ‘hard skills’ will be “your curiosity, your leadership, your persistence and your resilience”.

The skills Mr Schleicher is speaking of we develop on a daily basis at the Helen O'Grady Drama Academy as our primary aim is to increase confidence, communication and creativity skills for all our students. 

In today's highly competitive world it is imperative that students have the confidence and communication skills to allow for them to take what they want out of life. Not only this but as suggested in the article as technology decreases our need for the "hard skills" like math and science we will find that creativity and spontaneity will become more and more important as 21st century skills.

Through our multi-pronged approach to teaching we are not only allowing for creativity but encouraging it too in all spheres of the curriculum, along with the promotion of good communication and the art of being heard.

Below shows a video of students starting off drama with a warm up intro activity designed to get the students speaking and creating right from the start of the lesson and what fun they have too!😃

Other important life skills learnt that will greatly benefit individuals in their private as well as their public lives are collaboration, time management and critical thinking to name but a few!

Knowing just how much students benefit from the classes, we can definitely say that our international programme is the world leader in drama education and WILL set people up for LIFE!

Set Them Up for Life with our Established Drama Development Programme

Starting the year off at Drama Class is always our favourite time. We meet so many new faces through trial lessons and demonstrations at schools or bring-a-friend days and what resounds with us is the impact this time has on the students. They walk out of the class feeling energised, happy, excited and most importantly part of a "family".

This sense of belonging is so important to our young people, especially our senior and youth students who will at some point start their journey through puberty- the most dramatic change, both physically and emotionally, our youngsters will ever go through in their entire life. Now that is important! This sense of belonging and being a part of something not only helps them to become more confident and articulate as communicators but can often be the one place they can feel free of judgement and 'let loose'. At our academy we work through positive reinforcement and dynamic, practical performance allowing our students to enhance their creativity and performance skills whilst having fun.
And as research suggests learning through play and fun is far more effective than other forms of learning. 


All Helen O'Grady teachers receive specialist training in our teaching and methodologies to ensure that each and every student feels valued and important in our classes, and it shows in the feedback we receive from happy parents:

"Remi was on Cloud 9 and enjoyed it sooo much!! She will definitely be carrying on... "

"She absolutely loved it!!...she will definitely be there next week! Thanks so much!"

"Erin said she just looks forward to Wednesdays….its a joke in our house that Wednesdays are drama days and she’s not allowed to “drama”tise herself any other days, ha ha.

She told me she really likes Emma.  It’s so nice for us to have somewhere that she really enjoys.  I just wanted to say thank you."

We run our amazing classes weekly at various locations. Contact us today to join for a free trial lesson to set your children on the path of success!

Tel: 021 5534458

Email: nastassja@helenogrady.co.za

Website: www.helenogrady.co.za