Kirsty regan found now>press>play:

• Moderately improves attainment“Children are immersed in the stories so can apply their experiences to writing which is often better quality. We also use it for a reading lesson- although they aren’t reading, they are using their experiences to infer and predict ideas, feelings and opinions of the characters in the story. As it’s cross curricular, the children acting out the rock cycle, WW2 experience, solving problems in the Titanic, and so on, the children retain the information and then apply to their later understanding of foundation subjects.”
• Significantly builds student knowledge“We often use now press play as an ‘experience day’ to get the children excited about a topic. Because the children are immersed and acting out, they remember much more detail and sometimes being out extra little detail. They have many more questions which then help us as teachers lead the rest of the curriculum to cater for their interests and questions. These facts and knowledge seems to retain in their long term memory better because they have personally ‘been there’”
• Significantly improves behaviour or wellbeing“Initially, I thought there could be less engagement especially with the older children- they would feel self- conscious about acting out. I believe, because of the head phones, they feel like no one is watching and the room is quiet for that 20/30 minutes they are involved in the experience. Children also are able to express themselves without feeling self conscious. Some children who perhaps struggle with writing, can thrive and build confidence in these experiences because it’s not about what they write, but what they understand, what they question and what they remember.”
• Significantly reduces teacher workload“I wish there were many more of these scripts! They kids love it and we, as teachers, have nothing to resource. It’ll all about the children and very child-led. We often sit in a circle and just discuss, research and question afterwards. It’s a safe space for children and teachers to research together to find answers that we, as teachers, wouldn’t be able to come up with had the children not had that experience. It’s a lovely session normallY! In our school, we try to use it as much as possible.”
• Slightly improves school processes“I think the main thing we use it for is to excite children about a subject. It will be an ‘experience day’ as we call it to introduce a new topic. The children then have some ideas or information to apply throughout the remainder of the lessons and sometimes go back and act it out again and pick on things we hadn’t heard or remembered before”