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Drama and Performing Arts 

Leader of Dance and Drama: Mrs L Sheldon 

The drama curriculum has been designed to provide students with essential life skills that will be required as they progress into the world of work, as well as the skills required to help them succeed in a career within drama.

It is our intention to provide students with opportunities to develop their creativity, imagination and ability to work co-operatively as a team. In addition to this, student’s analytical and evaluative skills are developed to create an understanding of how to approach a text, identify context and develop artistic intent.

Key Stage 3 

In lessons during Key Stage 3, we introduce a range of theatrical skills, dramatic techniques and genres, as well as providing ample opportunity for them to develop essential transferable skills that will help to set them up for life beyond the classroom.

  • Year 7 Term 1 – Storytelling:  This introductory scheme of work introduces basic performance skills such as vocal skills (pitch, tone, pace and volume) and physical skills (gesture, body language and facial expressions) through the use of Roald Dahl’s Revolting Rhymes.  This scheme of work also allows for the introduction of the fundamental skills required for effective group work and therefore introduces ‘The 5 C’s’ (Co-operation, Concentration, Self-Control, Confidence and Communication).
  • Year 7 Term 2 – Page to Stage:  We introduce students to script layouts and methods to determine playwrights’ intentions, how scripts can be interpreted and gain an understanding of how contexts can inform style of performance.  Students learn how to identify genre and mood within a piece, whilst applying performance skills learnt in the previous topic to help portray this effectively on stage.  The ‘5C’s’ continue to be developed in this project as we begin to further develop confidence with more performance opportunities and writing their own scripts in small groups.
  • Year 7 Term 3 – Musicals:  Students are introduced to a new genre of drama that also allows an introduction to dance and singing as students explore the performing arts on a wider scale. Students explore musicals as a style of theatre and compare the differences to other genres.   Students will learn about what makes a ‘Triple Threat’ and pick a specialism to perform in the new style of theatre that they have learnt about.
  • Year 8 Half Term 1 – Dramatic Techniques (Stones):  Students are introduced to issue-based drama through the exploration of the play Stones.  Students revisit skills developed in Page to Stage to help determine context and playwrights’ intentions whilst learning more about how theatre can be explored and brought to life through the use of dramatic techniques.  Students begin to understand how issue-based drama can be presented sensitively and creatively by exploring the play’s theme of peer pressure and consequences.
  • Year 8 Half Term 2 – Live Theatre Review (Peter Pan): Students will be able to identify and evaluate the use of the dramatic techniques learnt in the previous scheme by analysing the National Theatre Production of Peter Pan. Students will develop the skills required for reviewing a piece of theatre, including the actor’s choice of theatrical skills, director’s choice of dramatic techniques and set and costume choices of the design team.
  • Year 8 Half Term 3 – Physical Theatre: Students are introduced to the genre of physical theatre and ensemble techniques, looking at how these can be used to create interesting and abstract work through a recreation of the story of Alice in Wonderland.
  • Year 8 Half Term 4 and 5 – Devising:  Students are introduced to the basics of devising a piece of theatre through the exploration of topical stimuli.  Students are encouraged to think creatively about how the dramatic techniques learnt in Year 8 so far could be utilised to create interesting pieces based on their initial response. Students will work together as a group to create their own original piece of theatre.
  • Year 8 Half Term 6 – Live Theatre Review (Grease):  Students build on their skills in analysis and evaluation whilst learning to home in on how actors select theatrical skills effectively to create a specific effect. Students are challenged with a focus on what Live Theatre Reviews would look like at GCSE level and learn how to write a review with in an extended writing style.
  • Year 9 Term 1 – Advanced Theatrical skills and Practitioners:  Students are introduced to more advance Theatrical Skill language whilst studying the Practitioner John Godber. We explore Godber’s style of work and how the advanced theatrical skills learnt could be applied to characters within this style. Students have the opportunity to collaborate on and edit a script before performing this to their peers to demonstrate their learning.
  • Year 9 Term 2 – Working as a Designer: Students are introduced to the design elements of theatre by taking part in 5 workshops: Set Design, Costume Design, Make-up Design, Special Effects and Marketing. Students will work in small groups to identify context, and use this to create effective designs that would help support the action within a performance.
  • Year 9 Term 3 – Final Project: Students are given the opportunity to build on their knowledge from the previous two topics by selecting a specialism in either acting or design. Students will work in small groups to create a theatre company and are taught how to effectively research, collaborate and refine ideas before pitching a performance idea in a presentation as their final assessment.

Key Stage 4 

At Key Stage 4 student’s study AQA GCSE Drama.

Component 1 – Understanding Drama: Students study the AQA set text Blood Brothers by Willy Russell.  Students explore the social, political and cultural context of the play and how this could affect how the characters are interpreted. Through practical work, students continue to advance their theatrical skills and how to apply these to a scripted performance to highlight themes or character types, before analysing and evaluating their work to allow them to access the requirements for GCSE written exam. Alongside this, students study a production of Billy Elliott the Musical before learning how to utilise their learning from component 1 to analyse and evaluate this.

Component 2 – Devising: Students participate in a number of practitioner workshops to explore a wide range of techniques and styles and aid the devising process. They will learn how to create a performance from a stimulus, before performing this to a live audience. Students analyse and evaluate the creating process through the creation of a devising portfolio to help solidify their understanding of how drama is created and performed to achieve an artistic intention.

Component 3 – Texts in Practice: Students will study a play in it’s entirely before selecting two extracts to perform to a visiting examiner. Students will have the knowledge to identify context and character motivation and be able to apply theatrical skills to the creation of a character or design.

What can I do with a Drama qualification?

Drama qualifications provide a strong foundation to further education in performing arts, as well as providing essential transferable skills desired by all employers in modern society.  Students develop skills such as research, negotiation, problem solving, communication and cooperation.  With these skills, students will be better equipped to proceed within their chosen industry, whatever that might be.