Halloween Drama Lesson: The Haunted House KS3 Drama
The Halloween drama lesson your pupils will beg to do again.
A group of friends is dared to spend one night in the old, empty house at the end of the street… and your class decides what happens next.
This fully resourced 60-minute lesson teaches tension and atmosphere through horror. Pupils learn that silence, slow motion and what you don’t show are the scariest tools in drama. It’s ready to teach, with no prep beyond a torch and dimmed lights.
What happens in the lesson:
The Ghost Is Behind You…: a creeping torch-and-freeze warm-up that makes pupils feel tension before they name it
The House at Midnight: a whole-class soundscape that builds creaks, wind and whispers… then total silence… then one scream
The Five Secrets of Scary Drama: slow it down, silence is scary, don’t show the monster, the false scare, leave them hanging
Enter If You Dare: a 3-scene group devised piece with still images, thought-tracks, slow motion, a false scare and a cliffhanger blackout
The Scare-O-Meter: pupils rate each performance and must justify their score using drama vocabulary
Included:
✔ Fully timed PowerPoint (60 mins), with a timer shown on every activity
✔ Learning objective, key question and key terms (tension, atmosphere, pause, soundscape, slow motion, cliffhanger)
✔ Step-by-step instructions pupils can follow on screen
✔ Peer assessment and plenary
✔ Homework: a 100-word ghost story ending on a cliffhanger
Perfect for Years 7–9, cover lessons, or the last lesson before half term. It’s written by a qualified Head of Drama and has been tested with real, very excited KS3 classes.














