Drama

Intent

Our Drama department’s intent is to deliver a fun and varied curriculum that exposes students to a wide range of dramatic styles, genres and techniques and gives them an opportunity to develop confidence in their own voices. We aim to develop learners who have the tools to construct their own pieces of meaningful drama and are able to interpret scripts in an imaginative way. Our KS3 curriculum is designed to support the English curriculum by bringing classics from the literary canon such as Dickens and Shakespeare to life by exploring them from the inside. We build upon this in KS4 by exploring Blood Brothers and Macbeth. The third strand of Drama is preparation for the written elements of the course, which involves writing about a script and evaluating Live Theatre. We follow the exam board advice that the best way to learn to write well is to ‘experience’ it first and we ensure that we approach all the exam work ‘on our feet’, then discuss it before writing down answers.

We are conscious that many of our students have not had much exposure to theatre and would benefit from ‘learning from the Greats!’ We believe in the power of Live Theatre to broaden students understanding of Drama, theatre and the world and will build in trips to see quality theatre and to view Live Streamed Theatre at every opportunity.

The transferable skills of empathy, confidence and articulation and the opportunity to explore and express the more challenging aspects of being a human are equally as important to us as building technical drama skills. There will be regular opportunities to discuss, imagine and reconsider attitudes, opinions and experiences that our students may experience in their journeys through life. Underpinning all the lessons is a celebration of how Drama and Theatre connect us though a ‘shared human experience’ – we realise through our experiences that what it means to be human runs through time and cultures.

We believe that it is essential for young people to have opportunities to learn in an active and empirical way and will make a point of only writing when it is essential for exam preparation or to enhance the learning experience. We aim to deliver lessons that are irresistible to every student in the Academy and to make Drama the subject that they go home wanting to talk about and remember in years to come.

Key Stage 3

Students will have two lessons of Drama a fortnight in Key Stage Three. We will explore a mixture of Devising and Scripted performance and students will develop a repertoire of conventions and techniques to help them structure meaningful theatre. In year Nine we introduce practitioners and see how their exercises and working practices can be used to add depth to performance. There is a good deal of laughter and everyone comes out of the Spring Term having made firm friends with Shakespeare!

	Autumn 1	Autumn 2	Spring 1	Spring 2	Summer 1	Summer 2
Year 7	Storytelling	Lady Mary and Mr Fox – Devising Drama	Exploring Shakespeare	Performing Shakespeare	The Identification – Devising Drama	Oliver – The Musical
Year 8	Perspectives of War – Devising	A Christmas Carol – Dickens	Exploring Shakespeare 2	Performing Shakespeare 2	Theatre in Education – Bullying	Frank Miller and the Wild West!
Year 9	Introduction to Practitioners	Exploring Script – Harry Potter and the Cursed Child	Devising Drama – exploration of a theme (Refugees)	Mirad, A boy from Bosnia	Noughts and Crosses – Malorie Blackman	GCSE Drama Style performance – choose scripted or devised in groups

KS4 (GCSE)

“Do more of what you love”

In addition to being extremely good fun, Drama GCSE provides a curriculum to ignite and engage your creativity, passion and interests. It provides freedom for you to experiment and take risks with your work and learn vital life skills while developing an understanding of theatre and performance.

You will have opportunities to: