The Sandon School

 

Drama 

Statement of Intent

Through drama and performing arts, we aim to share our passion for theatre, arts and culture to develop a student’s capacity to be artistic, creative and critical thinkers. Involvement in class and extra-curricular opportunities develops students’ sense of team work, caring for others, respect, exploration, inspiration, independent learning, leadership and ambition. Drama is delivered throughout key stage 3, 4 and 5 and we aim to provide fun, thought provoking yet challenging lessons in which we expect all our students to participate fully. 

Our focus within key stage 3 is upon mastering the skills of devising, performing and evaluating drama. Students learn to develop meaningful characterisation through interpretation of a range of play texts and scenarios. They learn about how theatre has evolved over time and consider theatre conventions and practitioner influence. They become adept at improvisation from a variety of stimuli and become skilled at solo, duo and small ensemble work. Teamwork and collaboration are key, as is their ability to take on the roles of performer, designer and director to support their wider understanding of vocational roles. Finally, students develop their ability to evaluate critically their own and others’ work by employing drama terminology. Speaking, listening and presentation skills have strong links with National Curriculum English and performance opportunities enable students to gain confidence for life through presenting to an audience. Opportunities for cross-curricular arts work are built into the curriculum whenever appropriate. 

At key stage 4 students can opt to take GCSE Drama (OCR). This course extends their ability to devise, perform and evaluate. Students work on projects and gain invaluable collaboration and teamwork skills. They study a range of practitioners including Stanislavski (Naturalism), and Brecht (Epic Theatre). Live and digital theatre performance opportunities are threaded throughout the two years to develop confidence as a performer and to facilitate performance analysis. 

At key stage 5 students can opt to extend their skills further through studying the A Level Drama and Theatre course. This course enables them to develop high level creative and performance skills in response to both stimuli for devising projects and scripted extracts.  Assignments allow students to work collaboratively to create a devised performance from scratch based on a given stimuli and perform a monologue/duologue and a group performance to a visiting examiner based on an existing text. The final aspect of the course is a written exam focusing on the student's ability to evaluate live theatre, interpret a performance text and translate from page to stage. 

Extra-curricular opportunities: 

Lunch time Drama Clubs, Whole school Production, Technical theatre Club, Dance Club, Theatre Trips  

 

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