Drama
At St Andrew's, the Drama Department is committed to providing a stimulating and inclusive learning environment that fosters confidence, creativity and a deep appreciation for performance and storytelling. Our curriculum intent is centred around the following key areas:
- Adaptive Learning
We want learning to be fluid and consistently relevant to our students. Students build a toolkit of transferable performance skills. This progressive skill-building ensures students can draw on a growing range of dramatic techniques as they encounter new styles, genres and challenges.
- Cultural Capital
We believe in the power of theatre to broaden students' perspectives and foster empathy. Our curriculum exposes students to a wide range of theatrical traditions, practitioners and texts, from Greek Theatre and Shakespeare’s Macbeth and Commedia Dell Arte to the work of Stanislavski, Brecht, Frantic Assembly and Steven Berkoff, to modern texts such as Blood Brothers, DNA and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. This encourages students to appreciate and engage with a rich variety of voices and dramatic forms.
- Creative Contribution
We commit to encouraging original thought and personal contribution within curriculum time. Devising units, including Greek mask work and Brechtian pieces created in response to current news stories are vital for students to develop their own creative voice and sense of belonging within the local community and wider society. As well as this, we boost this provision through performance opportunities and extra-curricular drama performances such as our annual school production.
- Ambitious Aspiration
Along with the school's overall ethos, in Drama we strive for success both within performance and the general self-confidence. Students are consistently provided with opportunities to challenge themselves, from performing and presenting in front of peers, to progressing onto the Pearson BTEC Level 1/Level 2 Tech Award in Performing Arts at Key Stage 4.
By embracing these key areas, we strive to equip our students with the confidence, creativity and communication skills to become expressive performers and critical thinkers.
Key stage 3
Year 7: Students build foundational vocal skills, physicality, stagecraft, and ensemble teamwork, then apply these through improvisation and tension-building in the themed Haunted House unit. They go on to develop script conventions, blocking and vocal expression through Scripted Performance, before reimagining fairy tales using improvisation, tableaux and narration in a final Devising unit.
Year 8: Students explore chorus work, masks, and tragedy conventions through Greek Theatre, before moving into the stock characters, lazzi and exaggerated physicality of Commedia dell'Arte. They then study Shakespearean language, character and performance through Macbeth and A Midsummer Night's Dream, ending the year by comparing naturalism and epic theatre through devised work in the style of Stanislavski and Brecht.
Year 9: Students study Blood Brothers across two units, first exploring character, context and narration technique in Act 1, then escalating conflict, tragedy and ensemble staging in Act 2. They move on to realism, subtext and Stanislavskian technique through the naturalistic play DNA, before finishing the year with Physical Theatre drawing on Frantic Assembly, Berkoff and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time to develop ensemble precision and non-naturalistic staging.
Key stage 4
At St Andrew's, we offer the Pearson BTEC Level 1/Level 2 Tech Award in Performing Arts. The qualification enables learners to develop sector-specific skills, such as refining and applying skills for performance in realistic vocational contexts alongside personal skills such as working with others, meeting deadlines and responding to feedback, through a practical, skills-based approach to learning and assessment.
It recognises the value of vocational knowledge and attributes alongside GCSEs, broadening students' understanding of the progression options available to them.
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