Drama

We believe that Drama is a vital and defining cultural art form. Throughout time, human beings have enacted events in order to help us make sense of the complex world we live in. We structure lessons that strike a balance between exploring process drama (learning by imagined experience) and product or skills based drama – the craft of theatre making. We develop schemes of work that provoke engagement and enthusiasm through our choice of theme and topic and apply early in our teaching the principles and assessment criteria that the exam boards recognise.
Our lessons typically start with a starter or warm up, an introduction to the stimulus, a focusing convention or strategy that frames the whole group or small group work and an opportunity to create, perform and evaluate in a welcoming, safe and supportive studio environment.

The Drama department offers a range of extra-curricular activities under the umbrella of ‘Budehaven Stages’:

• First Act – our club for Year 7 and 8 students.
• Acting Up – our club for students who are new to Drama and performance work.
• Centre Stage – our club for gifted and talented students.
• Encore – our revision club for GCSE students.
• Budehaven Lights – our school theatre company who perform the annual school production.

In Key Stage 3 we introduce the students to a range of theatre genres, practitioners and styles including both naturalistic and non-naturalistic devices and techniques.
Our work takes us on a journey from Greek Theatre through Shakespeare, onto Brecht, Stanislavsky and beyond – right up to modern day playwrights and plays.

Year 7

• Groundworks 1
• The Greeks
• Physical Theatre

Year 8 

• Groundworks 2
• Shakespeare's Theatre
• Devising Drama

Year 9

• Groundworks 3
• Verbatim Theatre
• From Page to Stage: Blood Brothers

In Key Stage 4 our students study the Eduqas GCSE syllabus.

The course is divided into 3 key components :-

•  Devising from a stimulus,

• Performing from a script,
•  Written exam paper which tests the understanding of a set text and the students’ response to live theatre.

Our set text is 'DNA' by Dennis Kelly and our main focus for devising work is physical theatre, exploring the techniques and ideas of Frantic Assembly.

In Drama the curriculum intent meets both so called ‘soft’ or ‘transferable’ skills with focus on teamwork, confidence, resilience, empathy and communication skills, and academic rigour in the subject. When taught well, drama can deliver all these skills, with the transferable skills being a happy by product of a well-planned and delivered drama curriculum.  It is important to note that these are not its sole purpose, and to focus on these generic skills undermines the dignity and value of drama as a subject in its own right; read on...

KNOWLEDGE RICH
We believe that drama is a vital and defining cultural art form, rooted deep within our history and our literature. We are passionate about the history of theatre, with its ancient Greek roots and the words of Sophocles. We are in awe of playwrights such as Shakespeare, Ibsen, Miller and Williams. We want to teach students about different theatrical genres, from Brecht’s epic style to the naturalism of Stanislavsky; we want them to learn about politics, culture and society through the study of drama and theatre arts.  We want them to explore a range of styles, from realism to physical theatre, and to learn about different practitioners, from Frantic Assembly, Steven Berkoff and Katie Mitchell to Emma Rice and Cornwall’s very own Knee high theatre company. We aim to teach students how to devise their own performances, and also to give them the skills they need to bring scripts to life on the stage. Nothing brings us greater joy than taking a group of our students to the theatre and watching them laugh, be moved to tears, learn something about the world and about themselves. We are proud to teach drama; it is a magical and awe-inspiring job.

KNOWLEDGE RETENTION
The typical drama lesson should start with a knowledge recap and low stakes quizzing or retrieval practice, and then some reading and a lot of questioning. The teacher should use questioning to check for understanding and should constantly be checking: Are students listening? Do they understand? Do they remember?

KNOWLEDGE ACCESS
Vocabulary Exposition
Knowledge organisers are used across the year groups. They are particularly used in KS4 with the exam focus and more time in our Options subject. In KS3 key vocabulary and knowledge is teacher led and the KS3 KOs support this.

Tier 2 and 3 vocabulary is pre-taught and explored together as they arise texts. Students enjoy 'de-coding' words when we read and discuss them in context but where common difficulties have been found pre-teaching vocabulary makes the reading of the associated topic text smoother.

Reading Instruction
In lessons, students need to be reading about drama, talking about drama, creating drama, in order to learn and understand the social importance, historical impact and technical aspects of drama. We endeavour to have reading at the heart of each lesson. After a quick low stakes quiz, we read a text that is appropriate to the lesson. Very often it is a playscript, but it might be a live theatre review, some literary criticism, exemplar responses to questions or a page from a textbook. Reading elicits lots of questions and discussion before moving onto some practical work or some independent writing.

Where possible every child is heard reading aloud, adopting an "as little or as much as you like" approach. If the learning environment is calm and purposeful most students are happy to read aloud, even if it's just a few words to start off with.
 
Writing Instruction
Practical and written work is modelled by the teacher, with the careful use of scaffolding to make sure that all students get the support that they need to meet the high expectations around what is produced. Writing and practical work in drama comes in many different forms and students thrive on the varied diet of responses they are required to give.

STUDENT FOCUS
The drama studio, or classroom, should be a warm, calm and purposeful place where every single student is able to thrive and to learn. We are advocates of the ‘warm strict’ approach to teaching and believe passionately that children learn best when there are clear expectations and boundaries that are consistently and positively applied.  The teacher is the expert in the room and the students’ most precious resource: weI expect students to listen in silence so that the teacher can teach.
The drama lesson is for everyone, not a certain ‘type’ of extrovert student.  We expect everyone to be involved and advocate a range of techniques to make sure of this: cold call; rigorous questioning; no opt out; think, pair, share.