By Kate Brewster, Creative Content and Partnerships Manager at PQA – Pauline Quirke Academy of Performing Arts
For many children, the idea of speaking alone on a stage in front of others can seem daunting. Yet moments like school assemblies and year group plays are often part of growing up. These early experiences help build the confidence to express ideas clearly, skills that later translate into speaking up in meetings, leading teams, and making their voices heard in the workplace.
Performing arts can help children develop that confidence in a fun and creative way, so public speaking becomes something they embrace rather than fear.
One particularly effective tool is the monologue, a long, uninterrupted speech delivered by a single person, often revealing their inner thoughts or addressing an audience directly. For many children, performing a monologue is an opportunity to discover their own voice and feel comfortable sharing their opinions with others.
Getting started with a monologue
The good news is that starting a monologue doesn’t have to be complicated. Encourage your child to think about a character, moment, or feeling they connect with, it could be inspired by a favourite book, film, or even an experience of their own. From there, the monologue simply needs a clear voice: who is speaking, what do they want, and how do they feel?
For younger children, it helps to start small, even just two or three sentences spoken aloud with confidence is a great foundation to build from. The most important thing isn’t perfection; it’s getting comfortable with the sound of their own voice and learning to hold an audience’s attention, even if that audience is just a parent on the sofa.
Building confidence through performance
Once your child has written their monologue, there are simple ways to help them practise at home. Encouraging them to perform in a relaxed, familiar environment removes the pressure of an audience and lets them focus on delivery. Equally, encouraging children to use their words to express themselves in everyday emotional situations, rather than just performing, helps them build real, transferable confidence that extends well beyond the stage.
Developing communication and literacy skills
Creative projects like writing and performing monologues inspired by a favourite book or film character allow children to make something they love their own. Mirroring a character they admire can naturally improve vocabulary and speech. Parents can support this at home by asking children to read stories aloud, or to perform as they think their favourite character would, stimulating creativity while strengthening their engagement with reading and language.
Encouraging creativity and imagination
Creative storytelling gives children a healthy outlet as they navigate growing up, learning new things, and developing relationships. Drama games, improvisation, and character exploration help children think creatively and express themselves with growing ease. Parents can encourage this at home through role play and collaborative storytelling, acting out scenes from a book or inventing new ones together builds both imagination and the confidence to perform in front of others.
Monologues give children ownership of a character, a story, and ultimately themselves. At PQA, students explore monologue work across all three classes – Comedy and Drama, Film & Television and Musical Theatre. In particular, the Comedy & Drama class focuses on helping students develop performance and communication skills through character work, storytelling, and solo performance.
As part of this class, students take part in a range of creative monologue projects such as What You Will, Monologue Slam, and Speak Your Story, where they develop and perform their own pieces. Through this process, students learn how to organise their thoughts, choose their words carefully, and deliver ideas clearly to an audience. These are the foundations of strong communication skills, helping young people build the confidence to express themselves not only on stage, but in school, friendships, and future workplaces.
As part of their commitment to supporting young performers, PQA are sponsoring “The Be Yourself” Award for Original Monologues in the National Youth Monologues competition. The competition is open to young people aged 9–19 across four categories: contemporary, classical, screen, and devised. The deadline is Sunday 5th April, so there’s still time to help your child find and celebrate their own unique voice and put these tips into practise.
