Our curriculum is designed to provide a layering of skills over time and encourage the development of the students’ critical facility allowing them to progress towards becoming reflective, independent and self-directing learners and human beings.
The curriculum at KS3 prepares students for KS4 by developing the skills required for performing and designing devised and scripted work and evaluating and analysing their own performance and that of others. The drama experiences of students at KS2 can be vastly different, so the curriculum is designed with the assumption that students may have had no previous experience, but equally with the flexibility to allow students with more experience to flourish.
Essentially, the content of the three-year KS3 programme follows a similar pattern in Year 7 and Year 8; using skills to communicate meaning and emotion, working with the language of scripts and creating stories through devising. In Year 7, the learning is teacher-led and provides the students with the building blocks required for all dramatic performance, with texts and stimuli chosen for accessibility and maximum engagement. In Year 8, the level of difficulty increases in terms of the stimuli and texts chosen from the canon of dramatic literature. The genres studied require more of a reflection on the wider world. The application of the basic skills is more precise and assured, and the level of independence expected from the students also increases. Students are also introduced to a variety of different techniques to help enhance their knowledge of theatre.
Mastery of the subject emerges over time through the experience of each successive performance. Re-teach happens as an inherent and embedded part of the subject. For example, throughout the rehearsal process, students respond immediately to live feedback to reflect on and refine their performances before their final assessment. While a particular final performance will not be explicitly revisited, the skills used in that performance will be explicitly revisited in the following project.
We want our students to become creatives who are passionate and enthusiastic but who feel drama is enjoyable AND challenging. They will have high expectations of the quality of their work and show that they understand the value of written evaluation and analysis as a way of developing their skills as a performer. We want our students to have a positive attitude towards the subject; an understanding that drama is not just ‘fun’ but requires discipline. An understanding of the transferable skills that drama provides, even for those who haven’t opted for the subject at KS4. These skills are for life – building relationships, a sense of place, effective communication and self-agency.
