AGE GROUP
This performance is aimed at students from Grade 2 to Year 8.
DURATION
60 minutes including Question and Answer Session at the end.
Includes
Teacher Resources, Lesson Plans, Online Course, Music, Videos to use in the classroom.
An Online Safety and Cyberbullying Show
Cool pop music, fun videos and live in-school performances engage students with important social-emotional skills, covering topics such as confidence, resilience, kindness, persistence, friendship and cooperation. The messages help students strengthen self-awareness and self-management of the personal and social skills encouraged in the curriculum.
Designed to support the curriculum and complement your school’s existing cyber safety, anti bullying and student wellbeing programs, this live performance gets students excited and facilitates further conversations in the classroom. Teachers are supported to continue the learning with lessons plans, an online course, music and videos.
The Playground Craze presents touring theatre in schools that students actually think is cool. We build rapport with them, as they see the performers the same way they see their favourite popstars or online influencers. They respond enthusiastically, making it possible to share important messages about digital safety, cyberkindness and seeking help when things are difficult online.
The performers lead students to consider the positive and negative impact that devices have on their lives. While the digital world may allow young people to create and connect, they are also exposed to cyber-bullying, lack of social bonding, isolation and a sedentary lifestyle.
‘Cyberkindness’ by The Playground Craze encourages healthy participation in both the online and offline world.
The whole performance was very captivating. The students really enjoyed the performance and actively participated. Ties in really well with a focus in Year 7 about friendships & appropriate use of social media.
– Luana Doko, Killester College
Touring to Schools in Australia and NEW ZEaland Since 2014
Students get excited about The Playground Craze because the music and dance is like what they see on YouTube, Instagram or TikTok. The show references online gaming that many students regularly engage with. It can actually be quite shocking to adults to see how much young people actually know about online trends, topics and games. The audience sees in the first few minutes of the performance that our performers also understand this online world, that they ‘get it’.
Due to this mutual understanding of the online world that many students inhabit, the audience are very receptive to the positive messages shown onstage. The excitement of the show helps them to really integrate the strategies they need to build their digital safety confidence and encourage positive interactions online.
CyberKindness
What Teachers Say About CyberKindness
Covered so many aspects of cybersafety relevant to kids these days. Very entertaining, the perfect mix of performance and audience involvement. Targeted very well to the students and their interests, Tiktok, gaming etc. Most importantly, the message of being cybersafety shone through! Question time at the end was a nice touch and helped with the students’ understanding.
IRENE AVANTITIS
Amsleigh Park Primary School
Both shows were incredibly engaging with such fantastic messages to students about wellbeing – particularly in this digital age! Particularly loved the TikTok dancing to get them engaged. The performers did so well at adapting their shows on the fly to our groups running late and their different ages! Thank you for being so chill about changes! Fantastic, professional and engaging group that the students loved.
EMMA THOMPSON
Korowa Anglican Girls’ School
Excellent. Very original, but fantastic use of source material eg Tiktok and other online trends. Great songs and fantastic on point messaging.
Great conversation starter re: cyber safety and very applicable to the work we do related to wellbeing.
Highly recommended.
PAUL EASTMAN
Holy Spirit Catholic Primary School
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
The performers will arrive at your school an hour before the scheduled show time. After checking in with your school administration office, we will make our way to the performance venue. The equipment will be unloaded and carried into the space, where the set, costumes and audio equipment will be set up.
The audience will come in and find their seats, we can either perform for students sitting on the floor or on chairs. When everyone is ready and all the class groups have arrived, let one of the performers know and the show will begin!
The performance duration is 60 minutes, including the question and answer session at the end. After the show is over, we will hand back over to the teachers to instruct the students to leave the performance space. The students quite often want to engage and talk with the performers, so we will be around to chat, give high fives and even autographs.
You will have received emails with lesson plans, music and videos to share with the teachers to use in their classrooms after the performance.
- A 60 minute live theatre performance incursion at your school.
- Important wellbeing and cybersafety themes and topics aligned with the curriculum.
- Young, professional, amazing performers who will have a big impact on your students and provide a memorable experience.
- Post show Question and Answer session when students also have the opportunity to ask the actors questions.
- Teacher and Classroom Resources, including:
- Important and helpful documents such as a permission slip, newsletter insert, Working withe Children Checks, Pubic Liability compliance documents and everything else you need to prepare for the day.
- Curriculum-aligned classroom resources, including lesson plans, extension activities and worksheets.
- Access to our two albums of positive pop music written especially for primary schools.
- Music Videos to enjoy with your students before and after the show.
- Access to our online video course.
- Full support from our team, who are always available guide you through the process and answer any questions you may have.
The Playground Craze can adapt to perform in many kinds of spaces – halls, gyms, classrooms, libraries, undercover spaces, we have done it all! We bring our own microphones, speakers and sound system so you don’t have to worry about anything. All we need is a clear space (4m x 4m and enough room for the audience) and access to a powerpoint. Then, there needs to be enough room for your audience!
A school hall or gym is ideal but we can also use double classrooms, libraries, anywhere that you can hold a school assembly will work. We don’t need any special theatre style venue, the show works well on a flat floor. If you have an unusual venue and would like to discuss it with us please get in touch.
We bring our own microphones and audio system so you don’t need to worry about that. The music and excited children can make the shows a little loud, so just be aware of anyone else who is working nearby.
During the booking process we will discuss with you how many students you have and what kind of performance venue you have access to. Together, we will work out how many students would be optimal to have in the audience, to ensure they have the best experience. Generally, we usually have between 100 and 300 students in each audience.
Shows by The Playground Craze are 60 minutes long. This includes a short Question and Answer session at the end, which allows the students to ask the performers whatever they like.
If you feel your students would benefit with a shorter performance (some specialist schools prefer a shorter show) please contact us and we can definitely make that possible.
The price is determine by the number of students you would like to see the show and how many performances you would like to have. Please contact us to let us know your audience number and we will send back a quote for you.
The minimum audience for our shows is 120, however if your school is smaller than that please get in touch because we love to visit smaller schools and we can usually find a way to make it possible for you.
The maximum audience is 400, as we use microphones and an audio system it is possible for an audience that size to hear well. However, we would always recommend splitting a group this size into two performances, so that they can see really well too!
The performance links to the curriculum in each State and Territory in the following ways:
The Australian Curriculum: General Capabilities (Ethical Understanding, Critical & Creative Thinking, Personal & Social Capability, Intercultural Understanding, ICT Capability, Literacy), The Arts, HPE, English, Digital Technologies, Online Safety & Respect Matters Curriculum Connections.
NSW
Creative Arts (Dance, Drama and Music)
Through experiencing the performance students will have the opportunity to engage with and enjoy how expressive forms can communicate both ideas, and values.
PDHPE (Personal Development, Health and Physical Education)
Develop the knowledge, understanding, skills and attitudes needed to take action to protect and enhance their own and others’ health, safety and wellbeing in varied and changing contexts.
Explore Personal identity and strengths including building self-concept, self-confidence, self-esteem, self-evaluation and cultivating resilience, adaptability and perseverance.
Cultivate Self-Management where students consider their identity and the relationship between personal actions and wellbeing for themselves and other others in the community. Develop skills to provide students with the ability to feel greater control over behaviour, manage and cope with stressful situation and take personal responsibility for their actions including skills such as decision making, problem-solving and help-seeking, important for managing healthy, safe and active lives.
Note: the performance also supports the school Digital Strategy regarding responsible use of technology and eSafety
VIC
Health and Physical Education Level Description
Develop knowledge, understanding and skills to create opportunities and take action to enhance their own and others’ health, wellbeing, safety and physical activity participation. Develop skills to manage their emotions, understand the physical and social changes that are occurring for them and examine how the nature of their relationships changes over time.
Students can contribute to building a positive school environment that supports healthy, safe and active choices for everyone, exploring a range of factors and behaviours that can influence health, safety and wellbeing.
Personal and Social Capability
Explore the expression of emotions and how the expression of emotions can impact on relationships with others. Consider the characteristics of respectful relationships and the behaviours that demonstrate sensitivity to diversity.
Ethical Capability
Developing the knowledge, skills and understandings to evaluate the significance of ethical matters by exploring a range of ethical principles including the concept of means and ends. Consider decision-making approaches based on thinking about the consequences and duties and develop an understanding that a range of factors play a role in ethical decision-making.
Digital Technologies
Plan, create and communicate ideas, information and online collaborative projects, applying agreed ethical, social and technical protocols
Critical and Creative Thinking
Develop the knowledge, skills and understanding to test the strength of thinking, develop the capacity to deliberately manage thinking and explore common errors that can occur in thinking.
Dance
Respond to dance: develop an awareness of how dance can communicate ideas about the past, present and future, about different environments, and cultural contexts.
Drama
Explain how the elements of drama and production elements communicate meaning by comparing drama from different social, cultural and historical contexts.
Music
Become aware of how the elements of music are combined to communicate ideas, concepts and feelings.
GET THE TEACHER RESOURCES
THE PLAYGROUND CRAZE AT YOUR SCHOOL
MUSIC
Listen to the music throughout your school day, so the children learn the lyrics. Use the songs as your school bell, sing them at assembly, play them as background music in the classroom. Access for free now.
LIVE PERFORMANCE
Invite The Playground Craze to perform at your school. We tour throughout Australia and New Zealand all year long! The students will experience the excitement of seeing a theatre show – nothing beats a shared, in-person, live event.
LESSON PLANS
Explore the themes of the performance using our complimentary lesson plans and classroom resources – developed by teachers. Dive in deeper to give students a comprehensive understanding of the messages in the music.
ONLINE VIDEO COURSE
Step through The Playground Craze’s online video course. See the performers again in scenes and songs, then complete activities to fully explore the topics relating to emotional and social wellbeing.