Our professional development, school partnership, and advocacy work is built on a specific foundation: more than two decades of direct practice across performing arts education, SEN specialism, and therapeutic arts approaches.
Annarie Boor has worked as a performing arts educator and SEN specialist for over 25 years, across mainstream, specialist, and therapeutic settings. That direct practice is what shapes every CPD session, school partnership, and piece of advocacy Tapping Frog Education produces — none of it is generic training built at a distance from real classrooms.
"A child who cannot read a textbook may read a room. A child who cannot sit still may hold a character for thirty minutes. We start where the child already is — and that principle shapes everything we teach other educators to do."
Performing arts education is often treated as a supplement to core learning — something added when there is time and budget, and cut when there is not. We take a different view. Drama, movement, and musical theatre develop skills that sit at the centre of a child's ability to engage with the world: communication, collaboration, self-regulation, empathy, and the courage to try something in front of other people. For many children — particularly those who find traditional academic routes difficult — the performing arts are not peripheral. They are the way in.
Structured drama and movement approaches — warm-ups, character work, scene construction, devised pieces — used as engagement and communication tools, not performance products.
Adaptation built into planning from the start, not bolted on afterwards. Every approach we bring into CPD or school partnership work is designed to include children with additional needs by default.
Drama, song, and movement combined as a structured route into communication and confidence-building — content we draw on directly when training non-specialist teachers to use arts approaches with confidence.
School partnerships are built around what a school actually needs — not a fixed programme imposed from outside. We begin with a conversation about the children you are working with, the gaps you are seeing, and what you want the arts to achieve within your curriculum or enrichment offer.
From there, we can work flexibly: a one-off workshop, a half-term residency, or an ongoing partnership across the year, feeding directly into our CPD and training offer. We are particularly interested in working with schools serving children with additional needs, children from disadvantaged backgrounds, and children who have historically been under-served by arts provision — because those are the children for whom this work matters most.
Most educational systems are built for a particular kind of learner. Our SEN practice begins from the opposite direction — from what a child can already do — and this same principle underpins the inclusive-design training and school partnership work we deliver.
Annarie's SEN practice spans a wide range of additional and complex needs. This is not a generalist background — it reflects decades of direct, specialist work across mainstream, specialist, and therapeutic settings.
Therapeutic arts, as we practise it, is not clinical therapy — it is not a replacement for mental health services. It is the use of creative and performing arts approaches to help children who are struggling to engage, communicate, or regulate: drama, movement, storytelling, and creative expression that give children who are not yet ready for language a way to explore and externalise what is happening for them.
This foundation directly informs the CPD content we deliver on emotionally based school avoidance, selective mutism, trauma-informed practice, and communication difficulties — helping school staff understand what is happening for these learners and how arts-based approaches can build a route back in.
A note on clinical services: Our therapeutic arts practice is educationally and creatively grounded, and we work alongside — not instead of — clinical professionals where those are involved. This distinction is one we build explicitly into the training and guidance we provide to schools.
This is the foundation behind our professional development sessions and school partnerships. If you would like to explore what it could look like for your team, we would be glad to talk.
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