Year 7

Our work is intended to help students gain trust and confidence and to overcome personal inhibitions. Students are encouraged to extend their powers of concentration. Empathy with others and sensitivity to needs, moods and emotions are developed as students work in co-operation with others.

 

Our objectives are to develop

 

Spatial awareness		Physical control
Sense of trust in others		Imaginative response
Co-operative group work		The confidence to work in role
Communication skills through storytelling/role play.
Sensitivity to the world around us.

 

Schemes of work (based mainly on storytelling, enabling students to play simple roles); to give understanding of the dramatic form through role play and the study of text.

1. 6-weeks intro. course		2. Mime
3. Beowulf		4. History of the Theatre
5. Pantomime		6. Study of whole play to meet literacy target
7. Stage Fighting		8. Desert Island

 

Sessions will include appropriate warm-up activities for physical and mental alertness, and concentration.

 

 

Year 8

The underpinning goals of Year 7 - confidence, concentration, empathy, sensitivity and co-operation - are further explored while new techniques are added; "forum theatre" and "hot seating". Basic skills are developed to greater depth.

 

Building on Year 7 work, students are encouraged to develop critical and analytical skills when considering both their own work and that of others. Positive criticism is essential and moves work forward.

 

Greater depth in role play is achieved through concentration and research. Moving from familiar situations to the unknown students are encouraged to understand the wider world; the theme of the "Lost Village" is taken. Exploration of text continues but is developed with consideration of staging techniques.

 

Sessions include appropriate warm up activities to give physical and mental alertness and concentration. Further build up activities allow in-depth explorations.

 

Schemes of work will include elements from the following:

1. Shoplifting		5. Reading the news (TV/Radio)
2. Bullying		6. The Village
3. The Lost Village		7. Old people
4. Gender Bias		8. Exploring text

 

 

Year 9

Year 9 consolidates skills learnt earlier and adds new techniques (e.g. Facing Out/Dramatic Pause) and technical skills (make-up, lighting). More unfamiliar situations will be explored; the issue of equal opportunities; text interpretation and appreciation will be encouraged.

 

Specific objectives:

*		To understand the nature of performance, appreciating what’s involved in putting on a performance – learning and practising technical skills (lighting, set design, costume, make up), and understanding the various space forms employed in theatrical presentation
*		To explore a Shakespearian text so that students enjoy, understand and appreciate Elizabethan English
*		To develop concept of theme, character and tension, using a SATs play and working towards a foundation for GCSE Drama

 

Schemes of work:

1. Macbeth (Core)		5. Stress
2. A Woman’s Place in Society		6. Soap opera
3. Leaving Home/Homelessness		7. Study of a text
4. Alcohol/drug abuse (Ref.PSHE)