Welcome to The Playing Space. We teach a wide range of speech and drama classes, courses and workshops in North London. We offer out-of-school classes during term time, as well as fantastic holiday clubs. We teach children of all ages and we run excellent teacher training workshops for adults. For everyone who works at The Playing Space, it is our own love of drama – and our own happy memories of the drama lessons we had when we were younger – that has brought us to this point. The Playing Space has always had the development of real life skills at the core of its ethos. Some of these skills are obvious, such as confidence, communication, teamwork, and listening. Some are hidden deeper beneath the surface, such as empathy, initiative, perseverance and the courage to step out of comfort zones. We’re clever at disguising all this wonderful education and training underneath all the fun that our students are having, but we have a sneaking suspicion that many of them realise that, as well as really enjoying their weekly lesson, they are also benefitting in lots of other ways. Most importantly, we want every child in our groups to feel they belong. We achieve this by keeping group sizes small, and by gently challenging our students to step outside their comfort zones in a way they can manage, and without fear of being judged or criticised. To sum up The Playing Space philosophy: we want our students to develop the confidence and skills to express themselves well by giving them a fun and safe environment in which to practise.