Drama
The Drama curriculum is designed around these key principles:
· Learning to use vocal and physical skills to allow students to approach a wide range of public speaking to a variety of audiences both in role and out.
· Undertaking tasks often outside of students’ comfort zones to build confidence in themselves within school and the wider community. Learning to have the courage of their convictions to make creative choices that are imaginative, original and brave.
· Learning the sensitivity and empathy needed to thrive within a community starting from a character in a play or a devised piece of work and applying these emotions and view points to their own lives. Students will work with others to get the best out of each other when striving towards a common goal either in pairs, small groups or whole class ensembles.
· Working towards a goal (often a performance in front of a live audience) challenges students to strive for excellence in line with deadlines and towards points on an assessment criteria. Students are often challenged in classrooms to consider alternative view points encouraging them to think deeper around certain topics.
· Students are encouraged and helped to excel when challenged, developing resilience and grit. Students will use the skills of analysis and evaluation work to develop their own understanding of success. Specifically students will learn how to review a live theatre production in preparation for KS4 Drama GCSE.
· Students will be praised and rewarded for effort and attainment which encourages students to have faith in and celebrate their own achievements and strengths. This also helps to grow more independent students who take charge of their journey in Drama and forges a desire to succeed.
· Students will learn to research widely and select appropriate and relevant knowledge to underpin their personal devising journey.
The principles that have guided our decision making in developing this curriculum and why it is distinctive.
· Our curriculum is designed to support the growth of the individual. Drama can enable our students to grow into more rounded and self-aware young adults.
· Our drama curriculum allows students to develop a number of essential life skills.
· Our expectations are that students consistently challenge themselves and take risks in the creation and performance of drama in their lessons. We set high expectations of all students.
· We reflect on our curriculum regularly and make amendments to suit our students. Four units are delivered each year in KS3 to echo the structure of the Drama GCSE at KS4. The subject of these units are chosen to increase the cultural capital of our students, offer them sophisticated and subject specific vocabulary and engage them in relevant and accessible content.
Above all, Drama lessons are fun, energetic and embed knowledge and skills through practical exploration.
In Year 7 we start with how to build tension on stage utilising the actor, stage shape, set, proxemics, lighting and sound. We move on to build on students’ practical characterisation leading perfectly into an introduction into Shakespeare which teaches students to demystify Elizabethan language. Students will also learn year 7 appropriate skills of analysis and evaluation when reviewing their own work and the live theatre performance.
In Year 8 students revisit the creation of mood and atmosphere by using voice, body, proxemics, status, set, stage shape, light and sound. Our next unit is an introduction to an alternative theatre genre. This leads onto a live theatre review building on the basic analysis and evaluation skills learnt in Year 7 with more independance. The year culminates in a performance which encourages students to work in small groups and a larger group ensemble on vocal and physical characterisation using physical theatre skills developed in year 7.
In Year 9 students begin by creating devised work around the themes of diversity, inclusion and equality. This devised unit is stimulus led equipping the students with the appropriate skills of research, selecting, editing, rehearsal, self reflection and independent target setting in preparation for KS4 Drama. We move onto a topic led scripted unit on Verbatim Theatre and Mark Wheeler plays. Year 9’s live theatre review is Billy Elliot which contextually links into the Key Stage 4 set text of Blood Brothers. Year 9 topics are very clearly linked with the PSHE curriculum to build on students’ social understanding of their identity within their home, school and wider community.
How does Drama contribute to the wider curriculum?
Plays and topics chosen in Drama link into many other subjects within the school as follows:
Links with English: Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, The Tempest, Billy Elliot (context), Blood Brothers (context)
Links with History: Black Lives Matter, Billy Elliot, The Railway Children, Anne Frank
Links with Art: Billy Elliot (context), school production, Creative Arts Showcase
Links with DT: school production, Creative Arts Showcase
Links with Music: The Railway Children, Billy Elliot, Blood Brothers, school production, Creative Arts Showcase
Links with PSHE: Mark Wheeler plays, The Railway Children, Black Lives Matter, Sparkleshark, often the subject matter of the chosen scripts in GCSE Drama link to PSHE such as Girls Like That, Cage Birds, DNA, Monsters, Lord of the Flies etc
Links with PE: Commedia Dell’Arte, Darkwood Manor, school production, Physical theatre (Frantic Assembly), Kneehigh, Off Balance Theatre Company
