Drama

Department Summary

Drama is an essential form of behaviour in all cultures, which allows for the exploration of issues and problems central to the human condition and offers the individual the opportunity to define and clarify their own culture. It is both art form and cognitive science. It is a creative group activity in which individuals behave in "as if" situations as either themselves or as other people.

Drama is a learning tool that utilises the following elements

• Co-operation
• Life experiences
• Factual experiences
• Fiction and fantasy
• The personal within the whole
• Precision in communication
• Reflection
• Symbol
• Testing attitudes and capacities

Quotations
"Drama trains human beings in the unique and vital skill of looking at themselves as if through other eyes. No surprise, then, that it is such a vital tool in working out how we can live together."
David Edgar in The Guardian July 2001

"The opportunity of art is to look at reality and distort the view productively."
Dorothy Heathcote

WE WILL ENDEAVOUR TO...

• The social health of the pupil group should improve as drama is to do with human behaviour and relationships and self-consciously examines them.
• The individual's use of language should be extended since drama provides situations where language arises out of a genuine need to speak. 
• Through drama pupils can be encouraged to grasp concepts, face issues and solve problems.
• Since drama depends on what the pupils bring with them to the lesson from their own experience, it can diagnose what they already know. It examines where they are in their thinking and attempts to move them on.
• Pupils will be stimulated into writing or drawing within or after the lesson, and to reading observing and researching as a result of the drama.
• Speaking and listening attainment targets in the National Curriculum will be met.

It is recognised that drama articulates the world of human feeling. It serves to challenge, arouse, involve and interest its participants. The drama teacher endeavours to create situations within which students can discover why people behave as they do, and this in turn promotes reflection upon their own behaviour.

Key Stage 3

In drama pupils are provided with a structured, secure, safe and enjoyable learning environment. Each drama session is pupil centred and will ideally take momentum from the needs of the group.

YEAR SEVEN
In drama students are provided with a structured, secure, safe and enjoyable learning environment.  Each drama session is pupil centred and will ideally take momentum from the needs of the group.  Pupils develop their drama skills learning the terms and expectations required to perform pieces of drama.

YEAR EIGHT
In Year 8 pupils build on the skills and subjects that they have studied in Year 7. Pupils take part in their first Drama Challenge. We begin to introduce script and pupils experience theatre history through Greek theatre and Shakespeare. Pupils also experiment with creating their own plays through their work on The Pardoner's Tale. Skills are developed through the toy shop unit. They imagine what it is like to be in other people's shoes and consider the subject of 'outsiders' through their work on The Silent Boy and bullying.

The range of topics covered is expected to develop pupils' imaginations, hone their performance skills and encourage them to experiment with different ways of performing. 

YEAR NINE
In Year 9 pupils will have undertaken a range of activities.  The aim is to develop and expand on the skills that the pupils were taught in Years 7 and 8. They start by taking part in their second Drama Challenge. They will also focus more closely on script and how it can be interpreted and developed for performance.

The units of work cover a range of topics including melodrama, camera work, and structuring drama as well as creating their own scheme of work through the drama focus group. By the end of Year 9 pupils should have developed and acquired more performance skills and strengthened the basic skills to create a piece of drama, perform it to an audience and evaluate the work that they have seen and produced.

Key Stage 4

Drama is an option subject at Key Stage 4 and pupils achieve excellent results in GCSE. In 2007 pupils achieved 80% A-C and in 2008 76% A-C, above the national average for boys in similar schools.

In 2008 we introduced BTEC Performing Arts in Acting which means pupils receive the equivalent of 2 GCSEs A-C Grade. The course teaches students the skills that a working actor would use to prepare for a role as well as developing performance and presentations skills. Pupils also study styles of performance, scripts including entire plays, theatre practitioners and reviewing theatre. Improvisation encourages pupils to explore attitudes and subjects through their work and the discussion that follows. There is a written element to the work and pupils are expected to carry out research tasks to support their practical work and show their understanding of the work they have undertaken.

Since starting the BTEC in 2008 pupils have presented performances of; Ziggar Zagger, Bouncers, Blue Remembered Hills, Our Day out and Metamorphosis as well as devised pieces that they created themselves to outside audiences. Our first cohort who completed the course in 2010 achieved 100% Pass rate of 2 GCSEs of C and above.

Extra Curricular

As part of Enrichment Activities pupils take part in drama productions and workshops. Year 9 gifted and talented students have become the student "voice" and have contributed towards creating schemes of work and lessons that they would like to be taught in lessons.

Most years a drama production takes place often with female students from other schools. In the last few years we have staged productions of Oliver, Grease, Midwinter's Night's Dream, The Tempest and Bugsy Malone. In December 2008 we staged an all male production of The Wizards of Oz and in December 2010 presented The Hayesbrook Revue; a show of singing dancing and sketches in the style of Old Time Music Hall with the audience enjoying a fish and chip supper.

Pupils in Years 10 and 11 often take part in workshops run by outside theatre companies; most recently with Scene Productions on the style of the director and playwright Steven Berkoff. They have been to see productions of Blood Brothers, The Woman in Black and have performed devised pieces of their own work to Sussex Road Primary School.