Welcome to the MISS SAIGON educational resource pack

The musical Miss Saigon presents us with powerful ideas about culture and conflict, history and tradition. It sensitively contrasts individual relationships with national struggles for political control. It asks us to consider the nature of sacrifice and our capacity for selfless love.

The resources in this downloadable education pack have been specially designed to actively engage students with these significant ideas and themes, provoking class debate and individual reflection.

Ideally to be used in conjunction with a class trip to Miss Saigon, the pack is split into two sections:

1. Introductory exercises, designed to prepare students for viewing and appreciating the show before a class visit, including background information on the Vietnam War, the inspiration for the musical and a study of the characters and events in the show.
   (Click to download pdf document - 38 pages)
   
   
2. Post-viewing activities designed to encourage students to examine the construction of the narrative, critically assess the performance and write their own reviews.
   (Click to download pdf document - 23 pages)

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The flexibility of the guide lies in the user's ability to reproduce individual worksheets within the two sections, enabling lessons to be tailored to the needs of a particular class. Rather than tightly timed lesson "plans", the sections are constructed to cover key areas of learning and to engage the pupils on a number of different emotional, critical and imaginative levels. In-depth activities suitable for Key Stage 4 pupils are interlaced with simpler literacy games and challenges which function as starter or "prompt" activities for Key Stage 3 students.

The pack ties-in closely to the English syllabus, asking students to read and understand a variety of texts; to evaluate the way language is used; to show comprehensive, comparative and contrasting skills; to speak and listen with confidence, and to provide personal opinions on social and moral issues.

Due to Miss Saigon's strong engagement with historical and cultural issues, some activities are easily adaptable to other curriculum areas, especially History and Citizenship/PSHCE.

Please note that, due to the content of the production, Miss Saigon is only recommended for children aged 13 and above, and always with parental or teacher guidance.