Drama Worldbuilding Pedagogy Research

Activating Children’s Social-Emotional Learning Through Story-Making

How can storytelling and drama help children develop empathy, confidence and the skills to work collaboratively?

Research led through a collaboration between Exceed Learning Partnership and Leeds Beckett University explores how creative, story-based learning can support children’s social-emotional development and enrich everyday classroom practice.

Published in Impact, Issue 27: Innovative and Creative Pedagogy, this research draws on a three-year collaborative action research project across eight Exceed primary schools, working in partnership with artist educators from Story Makers Company.

The project explored drama worldbuilding: an approach that brings together drama, storytelling, dialogue and imaginative inquiry to help children explore complex situations, consider different perspectives and make decisions together. By embedding these approaches across the humanities curriculum, teachers created opportunities for pupils to develop empathy, strengthen communication, solve problems collectively and reflect on the relationship between emotions, choices and actions.

The findings highlight positive developments in pupils’ confidence, collaboration, emotional understanding and critical thinking. The approach also offered inclusive opportunities for pupils with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) to participate, communicate and demonstrate their learning in different ways. Alongside these pupil outcomes, participating teachers reported increased confidence in using drama and storytelling to enrich curriculum learning.

Crucially, this work demonstrates the value of collaboration between schools, researchers, artists and educational leaders in developing practice, sharing expertise and sustaining meaningful curriculum change. Through a three-year process of co-planning, experimentation and reflection, teachers developed their own expertise and helped embed creative approaches across the partnership.

At Exceed, we are proud to have contributed to research that explores how creative pedagogy can make social-emotional learning an integral part of the curriculum, supporting children to learn with, from and alongside one another.

Explore the research and supporting resources to discover more about the approach, its findings and the potential of story-making to transform teaching and learning.

Read the full article: Activating children’s social-emotional learning through story-making: A collaborative approach in primary classrooms

Stephenson, L., Nixon, B., Hodgson, R. and Austwick, R. (2026). Published in Impact, Issue 27: Innovative and Creative Pedagogy.