Recently, a child in one of my sessions told a story about unicorns leaving for new pastures. Whilst on the surface this was about unicorns, this story was being told and acted out in a school where the classrooms were shrinking and shifting. Friends were leaving and adults were whispering in corridors about potential closure or merging. When schools become uncertain, children feel it, often long before we explicitly name it.

In primary settings especially, friendship isn’t a bonus feature of school life, it is in my opinion a strong foundation that learning stands on. Research consistently shows that belonging and peer relationships influence academic success. The Education Endowment Foundation highlights that social and emotional learning improves both wellbeing and attainment.

When children feel safe and connected, they are more willing to take risks, recover from mistakes, carry on when things feel difficult, and participate fully in their learning.

When friends leave, that solid foundation shifts.

For primary-aged children, friendship loss can feel like grief. They rarely say, “I’m worried about instability.” Instead, they tell stories. Dragons get left behind. Unicorns move country. Wizards who lose their teams. Children project big, complex feelings onto smaller, safer worlds where they can explore them at a distance.

When children hear conversations, they notice tension in adults, see classmates disappear and this creates emotional uncertainty. This can affect concentration, emotional regulation, confidence and participation. For quieter or less confident children, the impact is may be amplified. When your social safety net shrinks, so does your willingness to take risks and that includes something as simple as putting up your hand in class.
These are often the children we are most at risk of losing from view.

In our Speech Bubbles work, we create space for quieter children to tell stories and act them out. This isn’t just about creativity - it is about processing. In uncertain times, confident children may get louder, while quieter children can retreat further into the background. They may withdraw socially, avoid risk in the playground, or attach themselves very tightly to a single friendship or adult. Some simply become less visible.

Drama has a way of gently disrupting that pattern.

When stories are created collectively, the usual hierarchies soften. Status shifts depending on the role being played and listening becomes as valuable as speaking. A child who might never volunteer an answer in maths can suddenly become a powerful, fire breathing dragon or a wise forest animal. In that moment, they are seen in a different way by their classmates and often, for the first time in a while, they feel it too.

This is where drama offers something uniquely powerful - distance.

Through storytelling, children can explore fear, loss and change without having to say, “This is about me.” Instead, they can say, “The unicorn couldn’t find their friends,” and we understand what sits underneath. That layer of metaphor creates safety. It allows children to process experiences that might otherwise feel too big or too uncertain to name directly.

In these structured storytelling spaces, everyone has a role. Visibility grows, and with it comes confidence. As confidence builds, children begin to participate more, and through participation, a renewed sense of belonging can begin to form. And belonging, as we know, is what makes learning possible.

In times of uncertainty, schools have so much to focus on - timetables, staffing, and maintaining academic continuity as well as belonging and certainty. Things which are harder to quantify but equally important.

This is where drama and play move from enrichment to essential. Some ideas for the classroom:

Simple, regular and structured storytelling spaces can make a significant difference. A weekly story circle, for example, gives children a predictable moment to create and share narratives about characters navigating change. These sessions do not need to be elaborate. In fact, they are often most powerful when adults step back slightly listening more than leading and allow children’s ideas to shape the direction.

It is also important to acknowledge when children leave. In busy school life, departures can slip by quietly, but for children, unmarked loss can feel unsettling. Creating small rituals -a shared scene, a collective card, or even a symbolic send-off helps to name what has happened. Loss that is acknowledged tends to feel less frightening than loss that simply disappears.

We can also gently support children to widen their social worlds. Drama and movement games that involve partner swaps and changing groups help to soften fixed friendship patterns. Alongside this, creating imaginative spaces in classrooms or playgrounds such as a storytelling corner, a prop box, a treasure chest of objects offers an alternative to competitive play. Not all children thrive in fast-paced, rule-based games; some find their confidence in narrative, character, movement and invention.

And sometimes, the smallest shift comes through language. When a child is struggling with a friendship change, it can be tempting to reassure quickly, “You’ll make new friends.” But a simple acknowledgement “It’s hard when friends leave. I’m really glad you told me“ can be far more powerful. Validation lowers anxiety, and when anxiety lowers, children are more able to engage, think and learn.

When a child tells you that a unicorn’s friends are leaving for new pastures, they are not being whimsical, they are possibly communicating loss in the safest way they know how.

If we can meet that metaphor with space, play and shared storytelling, we are doing more than delivering a drama session. We are protecting confidence, building a safe space and hope.

And sometimes, that protection begins with a unicorn.

When unicorns leave: Why Drama matters in uncertain schools by Shermaine Slocombe