– KS3 Drama

Curriculum

Intent

The performing arts department at Rainford High seeks to foster all students’ creativity and cultural awareness by facilitating exploration in a wide variety of practical ways through an accessible and inclusive curriculum. At all key stages we aim to challenge students to look beyond their existing views and cultural awareness by experiencing live and recorded performances from artists in all genres, from the past and present and from different cultures. We believe a robust performing arts curriculum is a crucial part of our students’ experience at Rainford as it contributes significantly to preparing them for life as fully rounded members of the wider community.

In Drama, we aim for all students to explore their creativity through movement and speech. Students are able to delve deeper into social issues and diversity through role-play and so develop an understanding of the world around them.

Implementation

All students are taught Drama once a week at Key Stage 3. The curriculum is divided into six units per year and these are designed to develop students’ drama skills, knowledge and understanding in a cyclical way. Over the key stage, students are introduced to the techniques of devising, thought tracking, mime and interpreting scripts. As the curriculum develops, these skills are revisited within increasingly challenging contexts addressing both social and moral issues and themes. Students are encouraged to work in groups with their peers, to share and structure their ideas, to perform and be an active member of an audience, skills which are a key part of all lessons, resulting in an atmosphere of mutual respect and celebration of work. We encourage resilience and determination whilst creating a safe environment where students can take risks in their learning. All work is recorded allowing students to watch back, analyse and evaluate their own work and that of others.

Drama and Performing Arts is taught at Key Stage 4 and 5 where students follow rigorous practical courses offering clear pathways to higher education opportunities in academic, vocational and performance based courses.

Rainford has a full and varied Drama and Performing Arts extra-curricular offer including our annual school production and Drama clubs. The curriculum is further enhanced by regular trips to the theatre at Key Stages 4 and 5 and work with visiting drama and performing arts professionals.

Impact

We aim to deliver a wide ranging curriculum which enables all students to thrive, develop in confidence and celebrate their work and that of others. Students should make outstanding progress relative to their starting points when they join Rainford and, as they progress on their Drama and Performing Arts journey through the school, we aim to foster a lifelong appreciation and love of Drama and the arts.

For those students studying at Key Stage 4 and 5, we will equip them with the skills, knowledge and understanding to progress to higher education performance courses should they wish, but regardless of future career pathways, Drama and Performing Arts will develop our students into creative, articulate, thoughtful, empathetic, resourceful, resilient and confident members of society.

Possible careers and opportunities

Studying Drama provides pupils with a breadth of transferrable skills that will equip them for a variety of careers in an increasingly competitive jobs market. These skills would be ideal for pupils who are considering careers in the following sectors: Performing Arts, journalism, education, Public Relations, Health Service in particular Drama-therapy.

Facilities

We have three modern and well equipped Drama studios dedicated to Drama Two in the North Block, both having lighting and sound boards and one in the College.

Support

As a department we offer various levels of support to pupils including 1-to-1 intervention, after school revision classes and holiday sessions to prepare pupils for their GCSE examinations. Moreover, all key information resources, Knowledge Organiser have all been placed on Google Classroom to support your child’s learning.

Extra-Curricular

The drama and performing arts department offer various opportunities for pupils to pursue their passion for the subject outside of lessons. This has included the Shakespeare festival club in which students have learned and rehearsed a Shakespeare text for the national Schools’ Shakespeare festival and performed it at a professional theatre. The group has also performed throughout the year for various other audiences including for the students on transition day. As well as this, students have the opportunity to be a part of the annual school production, performing q range of works such as ‘Oliver’, ‘Guys and Dolls’ and ‘The Wizard of Oz’. The performing arts department also facilitate many educational trips to the theatre for Key Stage 4 and 5 students.

Year 7 Curriculum:

Autumn term

  • Mime:An introduction to Drama and establishment of baseline assessment. Students experiment with mime, melodrama and gesture from a given story. They also develop their group work skills and make and use a prop. Slow motion techniques and spatial awareness are also explored. There is a clear cross-curricular link with the English Department as we use a character from one of the books they study, The Graveyard Book, as a focus to develop their characterisation skills.
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  • Piped Piper: In this unit, students start to develop their vocal skills and experiment with freeze frame.They are introduced to improvisation and continue working in groups to show aspects of the Pied Piper story. Students start to explore role play within their groups.

 

Spring term

  • Matilda: Students learn about how to create clear characters through the use of a script. They are introduced to script work and develop their physical and vocal skills to create clear and exaggerated characters
  • Greek Theatre: This unit explores Greek theatre conventions through Greek mythology. Students make and use masks and costumes and develop the use of Greek chorus and synchronicity in their work by using Choral speech and Choral movement.
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Summer term

  • Stereotypes: This unit allows students to explore issues surrounding gender and age equality. They will use hot seating to develop and sustain a role and creating interesting pieces which challenge stereotypes by using a script
  • Exploring Stumulus: This unit brings together all the skills developed during the year. Students develop their improvisation skills by responding to a variety of stimuli and eventually devising their own pieces using the knowledge they have learnt through the year.

 

Assessment

Pupils’ progress will be assessed against departmental progress ladders.  Pupils will be assessed formally in our whole school assessment fortnights which occur twice a year. In addition, pupils will be assessed on their practical and theoretical skills in Drama in order to develop the core performance skills and vocabulary needed to progress further in the subject in subsequent years.

Resources

To help support pupils’ learning, we have detailed Knowledge Organisers on each topic taught. To help develop pupils’ vocabulary and encourage a passion for reading, we also set four pieces of reading homework a term which are published on Show My Homework.  Further resources are available on the school’s VLE, Rainford Connect as well as these useful sites:

Year 8 Curriculum:

Autumn term

  • Darkwood Manor: In this unit, students explore the use of physical theatre by storytelling using a variety of roles. Students further explore mime, freeze frame and are introduced to techniques of Physical Theatre such as body propping and choral movement. There is a clear cross-curricular link with the English Department as we continue to explore the Horror and the Gothic genre and identify its key features.
  • Exploring Shakespeare: In this unit, students take a tour of some of Shakespeare’s greatest texts. They look at Midsummer night’s dream, The Tempest and Macbeth. Student’s look at how to perform these texts in both traditional and contemporary styles of theatre. Due to the text picked this means we have cross curricular links with English as they explore the texts throughout KS3 too.
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Spring term

  • Homelessness: Students develop script work around the theme of homelessness. Students work with both duologues and monologues and develop a character whilst exploring the reasons why and effects of homelessness.
  • Murder Mystery:In this unit students will explore the style and genre of Murder Mystery. Students will develop their understanding and use of key features to create a short performance. Students will further explore how devise their own Murder Mystery scenes once learning about the different key features and how to structure a performance.
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Summer term

  • Bullying: Students use conventions developed during the year to explore the topic of bullying. They look at peer pressure and reasons around bullying. For this topic we use a script to explore the issue of bullying, pupils then create their own performances to highlight the topic to a younger audience.
  • Comedy:This is an exploration of historical context in Drama. Students will develop their understanding and use of stock characters to create a short performance. Students will further explore how devise their own comedy routines once learning about the different comedy conventions.
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Assessment

Pupils’ progress will be assessed against departmental progress ladders.  Pupils will be assessed formally in our whole school assessment fortnights which occur twice a year. In addition, pupils will be assessed on their practical and theoretical skills in Drama in order to develop the core performance skills and vocabulary needed to progress further in the subject in subsequent years.

Resources

To help support pupils’ learning, we have detailed Knowledge Organisers on each topic taught. To help develop pupils’ vocabulary and encourage a passion for reading, we also set four pieces of reading homework a term which are published on Show My Homework.  Further resources are available on the school’s VLE, Rainford Connect as well as these useful sites:

Year 9 Curriculum:

Autumn term

  • Blood Brothers : This is a substantial unit based around ‘Blood Brothers’. Students learn how to read a play script and make it come to life. They will explore the play by developing workshops around key areas. Students will learn and rehearse a scripted section of the play. They will develop their characterisation by using hot seating and emotion memory. There is a clear cross-curricular link with the English Department as they study the performance of the text later in Year 9
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  • Theatre in Education: This is a unit based around the style of theatre, ‘Theatre in Education’. As well as researching prominent topics effecting the younger generation at the moment (knife crime/gang culture/drink driving) pupils will also complete a Theatre in Education performance focusing on the negative effects of these issues. Students will learn how to use and interpret a script to be able to create a Theatre in Education performance whose aim is to teach an audience about a specific issue.

 

Spring term

  • Project TV: This unit uses the format of a pitch from the Apprentice. Students will create a presentation/pitch about an idea for a TV show that they must sell to the board. Students will explore different aspects of production such as set design, script work, as well as presenting skills. Pupils will create a series of products which will be shown in a final pitch/presentation at the end of the topic.

Shakespeare in combat: This unit again has a cross curricular SOW with their English unit to aid with their GCSE. In this unit, students explore the Shakespeare text of Romeo and Juliet focusing in particular on their use of language, stage directions and staging a performance. They explore key scenes which contain important stage directions that they then interpret and use the skills they have developed in stage and sword fighting for a performance.

 

Summer term

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  • Careers in the Performing Arts Industry: This unit allows students to explore the various careers in the Performing Arts. Each week will be focused on learning a different career in the industry and students will create a product based on that career. We will look at, puppetry, mask making, live theatre and reviews, and marketing.
  • Special effects: This unit allows students to explore the technical side of drama using special effects make up. Each week will be focused on learning how to create a new special effect using the make up with the final weeks focusing on how to create those effects using reference pictures and a brief.
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Assessment

Pupils’ progress will be assessed against departmental progress ladders.  Pupils will be assessed formally in our whole school assessment fortnights which occur twice a year. In addition, pupils will be assessed on their practical and theoretical skills in Drama in order to develop the core performance skills and vocabulary needed to progress further in the subject in subsequent years.

Resources

To help support pupils’ learning, we have detailed Knowledge Organisers on each topic taught. To help develop pupils’ vocabulary and encourage a passion for reading, we also set four pieces of reading homework a term which are published on Show My Homework.  Further resources are available on the school’s VLE, Rainford Connect as well as these useful sites: