The National Theatre has this week launched Let’s Play, a programme that will see more drama and creative learning across the curriculum in UK primary schools.
The initiative will see plays with songs and music for performance by children aged 4 to 11 being commissioned together with training for Key Stage 1 and 2 teachers.
Let's Play hopes to reach 700 schools over three years. It is based on an original idea by Katie Mitchell and developed by professional theatre artists with teachers and primary school leaders.
The initiative comes in the wake of creative subjects being pushed out of the curriculum which focuses on English and maths, and the need for schools to strive for higher ratings in the national league tables.
In the meantime, National Theatre Connections, an annual festival of new plays for youth theatres, continues.
This year ten new commissioned plays will be presented by 270 young theatre groups from across the UK and Ireland as part of National Theatre Connections.
Playwrights for this year are Alice Birch, Brad Birch, Chris Bush, In-Sook Chappell, Fiona Doyle, Phoebe Eclair-Powell, Natalie Mitchell, Barney Norris, Chinonyerem Odimba and Chris Thompson.
The leading partner theatres are Aberystwyth Arts Centre, The Albany London, artsdepot London, Bush Theatre, Cast Doncaster, Chichester Festival Theatre, Derby Theatre, Eden Court Inverness, The Garage Norwich, HOME Manchester, The Lowry Salford, Lyric Hammersmith, Marlowe Theatre Canterbury, Northern Stage Newcastle, The North Wall Oxford, Norwich Playhouse, Queen's Theatre Hornchurch, Royal & Derngate Northampton, Sheffield Theatres, Sherman Theatre Cardiff, Soho Theatre, Theatre Royal Bath the egg, Theatre Royal Plymouth, Theatre Royal Stratford East, Traverse Theatre Edinburgh, Warwick Arts Centre, West Yorkshire Playhouse.