Drama
Curriculum Overview
Intent: why do we teach what we teach?
Our vision is to maximise opportunities for students to enrich their lives through cultural and social experiences. Students will:
use their imagination and creativity through practical learning and real life settings
develop their self-esteem and confidence to empower them to be individuals
develop lifelong skills such as teamwork, leadership, creative problem solving and risk taking.
By developing a positive and safe environment it allows our students to explore a range of topics which are relevant to them and the wider community. We aim for Drama to be colourful and fun whilst developing and exploring drama techniques through a skills and issues based curriculum. Through links with external companies, practitioners and theatres our students where possible have the opportunity to see good practice and experience a professional working environment, both as an audience member and as a practical participant.
Implementation: how do we teach what we teach?
At KS3 students are introduced to a variety of drama techniques and ways of working so that they are able to devise their own work and develop confidence and group skills. They are introduced to drama strategies and key drama skills and concepts which are developed progressively. They use these to create, rehearse and perform their own work. Students also learn to evaluate performance and write about drama using the correct vocabulary. Students are assessed at the end of each unit of work on the particular skills learnt in that unit.
In Year 9 the Drama curriculum is designed to consolidate skills introduced in Year 7 and 8, whilst introducing new skills, drama techniques and concepts. Students will be introduced to more challenging stimuli, issues and genres, also learning about Drama Practitioners and Theatre Companies methods and techniques. Students will be expected to work with a greater level of independence in the devising and staging process and take bigger risks with their ideas. Students are given the opportunity to experience the demands of the GCSE specification in units of work built around the three Components.
At Key Stage 4 students start with skills developing a full theatre production knowledge, looking at, in detail, the role of the director, designer, lighting technician and costume designer. This is followed by the skills needed for the component 1 examination, where students explore stimulus in more depth and produce outcomes in response to artists work, leading to a final piece in groups. We encourage students to develop ideas that are personal to them, allowing them to find their own creative voice.
There is a massive emphasis on theoretical work, and students have been developing this since KS3 students will work on building their portfolio and working through practice papers.
Impact: how do we know what pupils have learnt and how well they have learnt it?
At Key Stage 3 the majority of students show steady sustained improvement from Year 7 to Year 9 towards their targets and many achieving above. Students make the progress we would expect as it is necessary for their Drama education to start from the beginning due to their varying previous experiences. We access this through analysing their increasing knowledge of our curriculum, discovering have they got a greater metacognition and deeper conceptual understanding of the more challenging concepts and ideas relation to Drama. We also evaluate their researching and analysing and how they are able to put ideas into concepts into making. Finally, we evaluate their independent skills from page to stage, interpreting a script, analysing performances, and design elements .
At Key Stage 4 the Drama we have seen a new and improved 4 – 9 pass rates have been stable and are at or above National averages for the last number of years. Students update at GCSE and their feedback from their Drama is very positive. They feel the course we provide at GCSE prepares them well for furthering their studies in this area. Although the curriculum is designed to ensure that all areas of assessment objectives are covered, there is scope for students to create work so they can discover themselves and find their voice.
