Drama
Drama is part of the Performing Arts faculty along with Music.
We have built a vibrant, dynamic and creative department which has a key role to play in our students’ personal development through classroom lesson and school wide extra-curricular activities.
In Key Stage 3 students are beginning to address the world with a growing capacity for reflective thinking and learning, this is met with a progressive Drama curriculum covering both performance and theatre design. Students will explore both factual and fictional texts that help to broaden their understanding of different social, cultural, moral and historical contexts and situations. Drama at this stage also promotes the development of the individual in a group context: roles and ideas are negotiated, problems solved and decisions made together. Drama often leads to a performance and creates opportunities for students to demonstrate their understanding, as well as promoting deeper levels of analysis as they evaluate the work of others.
At GCSE, students follow the OCR specification for Drama where they will study performance, the role of the director and technical disciplines such as set and costume design. The curriculum at KS4 is designed to ignite and engage students’ creativity, passion and interests. It also provides freedom for them to experiment and take risks with their work. The exam components focus on analysis and responding to text and performance, devising theatre from stimuli and performing existing texts.
Topics Covered this Academic Year
| Year 7 | Year 8 | Year 9 | |
| Autumn Term |
Silent Movies: Skill based project where students explore mime and improvisation.
Commedia Dell Arte: Students will explore theatre history and one of the earliest forms of professional theatre.
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Gothic Horror: Students will explore the genre and conventions of Gothic Horror, taking inspiration from famous literature e.g. Frankenstein and the poetry of Edgar Allen Poe.
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DNA: Students will work on a set text, taking it from page to stage. Within this module they will explore; skills used when interpreting scripts, characterisation, genre and style and the use of performance space. |
| Spring Term |
Storytelling: A unit focused on the creation of plot, structure and the use of basic theatrical devises.
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Midsummer Night’s Dream: This unit is focussed on the development of theatre design skills, using Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream as a starting point. Their work will lead to designs and performance.
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Theatre History: Students will explore the origins of theatre, the work of Greek playwrights and conventions such as chorus and stage combat. |
| Summer Term |
Physical Theatre: This unit focuses on the genre of physical theatre and theatre practitioners. Students will explore how to convey narrative through movement.
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Moments that Changed the World: Students will research and take inspiration from real life events e.g. Aberfan disaster, Holocaust, suffragette movement. Using the conventions of documentary and verbatim theatre, students will create their own powerful pieces of performance. |
Find Me: Students will be given a play text as their starting point to explore the theme of mental health. They will draw on the skills and knowledge they have gained to create a piece of theatre of their own. Within this module they will work as an ensemble to explore; devising plot and character, designing for devised work and audience impact. |
Last Updated: September 2022
