Where are all the 5-year olds?

Why Speech and Drama teachers struggling to recruit new starters - and what can we do about it

If you’ve been running Speech and Drama clubs or teaching LAMDA for a while, you might have noticed something recently: it’s harder than ever to bring in new young students.

You’re not imagining it. Across the country, drama teachers are reporting smaller intakes in their youngest age groups. It’s happening at The Playing Space too. We used to run 8 Introductory Groups every week, each with ten children in Reception to Year 2. That’s 80 children every week! And the classes were full with a waiting list. We now have two Introductory Classes each week! Fortunately for us our Intermediate and Advanced classes are full and numerous…

But here’s the kicker: without new 5–8 year olds joining our groups, our businesses can face a dangerous cliff-edge when older students head off for exams, college, or uni. And for the children? They miss out on years of skill-building at a crucial age of brain development that help them become confident, articulate, expressive human beings.

Why is it happening?

It’s likely a cocktail of factors:

• 📉 Lower birth rates mean fewer children to go around.

• 🦠 The pandemic got parents used to quieter schedules.

• 💸 The cost-of-living crisis has made many families scale back on extras.

• 🏃‍♀️ Cheap, easy after-school clubs are competing for attention—and budget.

There may be other factors as well, but I suppose it doesn’t really matter why it’s happening. The important thing to understand is whether we can do something about it!

So what can we do?

Here are the strategies that me and my team are using to target this important age group. We’ve already notice an uptick in September sign ups and there are definitely more parents of Key Stage 1 age children getting in touch than this time last year.