Drama is taught to KS3 students for one hour per week. Students learn about the artistic practice of drama and how to create and sustain a range of roles in both planned and improvised work.

In Year 7 students learn the fundamental skills of drama by exploring different genres and performance styles. They use texts such as Odysseus and Macbeth as a starting point for drama, and creative stimuli (Darkwood Manor, Spears Sports) to create their own narratives. We also use drama to ‘rehearse for life’ by focusing on topics such as bullying and family relationships.

In Year 8 we build physical skills through a unit on boxing, in which students learn controlled movement at the same time as questioning the moral implications of pursuing the sport. We use texts from diverse voices and modern comedic scripts to create more developed drama, and learn approaches from Frantic Assembly to see drama through a different lens.

Year 9 students spend time focusing on theatre design (set, costume, lighting and sound), as well as building skills in practical drama through texts about a mysterious character called Comet and verbatim accounts of protests. We build on our skills using Brecht and Artaud’s perspectives on non-naturalistic drama to create sustained, thought-provoking devised work.