How We Are Different

I posted the following item on our Facebook page and we had such a positive response I thought it was worth repeating here.


I was talking to one of the Mothers of a new student today and I asked her why she chose to send her daughter to our programme. Well she gave me a list of reasons and she was right on the button. It reminded me of how we are different and its worth repeating here.

Points of Difference at Helen O'Grady Drama Academy

Full curriculum that is not repeated in 4 years

Every class has a proper lesson plan

Classes are operated to ensure a structure and a safe and fun environment.

Curriculum is fully developed and used internationally

Trained teachers with wide experience and recognized qualifications

Students are not required to buy uniforms or T shirts

No prior experience or interest in drama is required

No exams or hurdles to jump, students grow at their pace

The emphasis is on life skills and not performing arts

Trail programme allows a try before you buy

Its true that we focus on self development skills for children and young adults. Yes we do some acting, mime and movement and speech, but the emphasis is not on being a star or the next best thing on stage. Its about being who you want to be and growing in a fun environment.

Graham Wilson
Executive Principal
Helen O'Grady New Zealand

Hi Everyone.

Have you sent in your enrolment form for 2013 yet?

If not please email them to us or of course you can bring them to class and give to Helen.

Have you had a chance to look at our new website or Facebook page?

Keep looking as soon we will be announcing a competition for our students.

All the best.

Welcome to 2013

Welcome to the 2013 Helen O’Grady Drama Academy Programme

We have another exciting year of fun ahead. Looking forward to seeing all our students back from last year and to welcoming new students to our fun classes.

The end of Year Productions were a major success, everyone had such a good time. It is fantastic to see our students, your children, on stage and performing so well. It is so wonderful to see how our “shy” students have blossomed and gained the skills and confidence to go on stage and become performers.

This year our classes commence during the first week of the school term.

For most this will be the week commencing 04 February, but there will be some variations throughout the country depending on the class your child attends. Please check with your local Principal if you are not sure, or check their Blog Page.

Hope you have had a chance to look at our brand new website?

www.helenogrady.co.nz

please encourage your friends and family to have a look and maybe attend one of our classes.

This year we are introducing:

 “ The Present that Keeps On Giving” our Life Skills vouchers.

We had many requests, especially from Grandparents, who wanted to pay for classes for their grandchildren. They wanted to gift our programme to their children and asked if we could produce something for them.

We thought it was a great idea and have produced the Life Skills vouchers.

Now anyone can buy a voucher for a Term or longer and gift it to the child of their choice. If you are interested please contact your local Principal or via email or phone to us and we will pass it on.

Contacts.

We rely on being able to contact you via a variety of means but increasingly by email (its saves trees). Please, if you have changed any of your contacts, home address, phone or email, please let us know. That way if we have to contact you urgently

As always please feel free to contact us if you have any questions about any part of our Programme.

All the best

Graham and Helen

End Of Term One

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   Term 2 will commence immediately after the school holidays, the week beginning April 23^rd 2012

All children presently enrolled in classes are automatically re-enrolled.

Next term is a very exciting one as we have the 

Parent Day Presentation.

You, your family and friends are invited to come and enjoy a cross-section of the curriculum the students have prepared. Along with speech and movement we will be performing mini-scripts, plays and other exciting items. Come and celebrate your children’s achievements, see how much they have developed in confidence and verbal communication skills.

Plus we will be presenting Achievement Plaques and Certificates to children who have completed one year and 100 or 200 lesson milestones.

 NEXT TERM STARTS 23 April 2012

Have a wonderful break! See you next term!

        

What ....... Week Six ...... Already!!!!!

Yes it is. Only 3 more weeks and the Easter Bunny will be making his way to your house.

But before he does, we still have plenty of fun activities to get through.

I have been very impressed by the improvement of your ab-libbing skills. This is one of the hardest parts of our lessons to learn because sometimes you might not be able to think of anything to say, or feel a little bit shy. Don't worry. Learning how to ab-lib is important because it means we can set scenes in a play, react to what the other characters are saying and if someone forgets their words it means we can fill the space by making up our own sentences so the play can go on and the audience won't know that something is not quite right.

Now this brings me to speech. It is great to see you all working hard at our speech exercises. I know these may sometimes seem boring, but they are very important and must be practiced. This is so we can train our voices to be nice and clear, with good beginning and ending of words with nice sounds so that when you stand up in assembly to speak, you will be able to be heard right at the back of the room, without using a microphone.

Moving on to   ..... movement. This week we are learning 4 types of movement - Even and Uneven movements and Smooth and Jerky movements. When we have practiced these individually we will make a dance incorporating all 4. You'll have to listen very carefully for the tambour to give you clues when to change.

Improvisations this week are: Lower - "Sorry it was an accident" and for Uppers "Exploring the Wodonga Caves"

For the last activity of the lesson the lowers will be showing me the difference between behaving and eating politely and horribly while in a restaurant.
The Uppers will be making up a snippet starting with the sentence "Don't forget to come next Wednesday".

See you at class

Bye for now

Hi Everyone

Week Three already
This term is flying past.

Our Dance Drama is the main focus of our lessons this week.

Over the last two weeks we have been learning about locomotion (fast and slow), moving between different styles of locomotion (walking, skipping, hopping etc), working with partners and making our bodies look happy or sad.
This week we put all that together with "The Villagers and the Tyrant".
Some of us will be villagers playing in the sun and being happy, until the Tyrant appears and starts to demand that we pay him some money. At first we are scared (and show this by sad, unhappy bodies) and give him what he wants. After a while we realise that he is not that scary and gang together to sneak up on the Tyrant and give him a scare instead. The Tyrant goes from being loud and scary to being unhappy and sad.

Of course we show all this using our Mime and Movement skills - no talking - just lots of facial and body expressions. And of course every class is different in the portrayal of the story.
I can't wait to see how your class does it!

Lower Primary classes our Improvisation this week is about having "Fun in the Sun" at the beach. Don't forget to bring your props.
Upper Primary, our Improvisation is called "The Bus Accident".  We might have to practice our first aid skills to help the injured passengers.

Keep up the good work on your ad libbing. Your speech is coming along, but remember practice makes perfect. So that is what we will be doing - practicing so we can be perfect.

See you all at class.

Bye

How's It Going??????

Have you all settled back into your school routine?

I really enjoyed our first week back, seeing all the old faces and meeting lots of new ones. The start of the term is always a little unsettling but we too will soon be into our routine.

It has been good to hear lots of fine voices. I can tell that some of you have been practicing your speech exercises. Your ad-libbing is coming along too and it has been great to hear this during our classes last week. Dust off those imaginations and get all those creative minds working. We can have sooooooo much fun.

The subject of our "snippets" this week is "Why did you put the phone down when I came into the room?" - That's a very long sentence by itself. Can you come up with some answers to it. I look forward to hearing them all.

Also I have really enjoyed watching some of our younger members having fun with crepe paper. We have been making flames and fires and dancing around the room using them as streamers. Just remember, while it is fun to pretend to be flames, we don't play with matches or fire as it can be very dangerous.

Have a really good week. I look forward to seeing you at class.

Bye for now