Drama
Drama at Key Stage 3
Students in Year 7 and 8 will study drama within one 50-minute timetabled lesson per week.
Students will have the opportunity to learn improvisation techniques, characterisation, performance and production skills, language awareness and how to interpret texts.
Assessments will take place every half term, and will focus on devising and performing. Individual and group work will allow students to express themselves vocally and through movement enabling them to develop the confidence to perform in front of an audience.
Drama at Key Stage 4
Students who choose to continue drama in years 9,10 and 11 will follow the AQA GCSE Drama specification.
Students may choose to study GCSE Drama from year 9 which is delivered over one double and one single lesson a week.
GCSE Drama offers students the opportunity to explore drama as a practical art form in which ideas and meaning are communicated to an audience through choices of form, style and convention. Students will create, perform and respond to drama informed by their theoretical knowledge of both drama and theatre.
GCSE Drama is divided into three components: understanding drama, devising drama and texts in practice.
Students will gather many invaluable skills; they will learn to collaborate with others, think analytically and evaluate effectively. They will gain the confidence to pursue their own ideas, reflect and refine their efforts. Whatever the future holds, students of GCSE Drama emerge with a toolkit of transferable skills, applicable both in further studies and in the workplace.
Assessment Structure:
Component 1: Knowledge and understanding of drama and theatre - study of one set play and complete an analysis and evaluation of the work of live theatre makers (Written exam: 1 hour 45 mins)
Component 2: Devising drama - students will learn the process of creating devised drama and complete a performance devised drama (Devising log and performance)
Component 3: Texts in practice - Performance of two extracts from one play. (Performance of Extract 1 and 2)
Year 11 students are expected to attend regular ‘Zone’ sessions whereby students can spend more time on GCSE drama projects. GCSE drama students will also have the opportunity to showcase their exam work through performance and production evenings.