Drama

At Southlands we believe that Drama is an essential part of a broad and varied education that equips students with the tools necessary to shape their future: inspiring, challenging and encouraging our young people to become successful and resilient young adults.

The focus on five key principles at Key Stage 3, the five C’s: Creativity, Collaboration, Communication, Confidence and Critical thinking ensures that all students leave their experience of Drama having gained and developed transferable skills that will support them throughout their lifetime.

From the beginning of year 7 students will be encouraged to think like theatre professionals. There is an emphasis on individuality within Drama and students are able to pursue their interests and passions through having the opportunity to experience a number of different roles seen within the theatre. KS3 Students will have the opportunity to display their ambition by working for the role they want in audition style activities in larger works such as the unit based around the genre of Pantomime. These roles include production elements such as stage management or leadership opportunities such as becoming the Director. At the end of KS3, students will have experience in creating, performing and evaluating theatre in a range of styles and formats. The curriculum is designed to allow students the opportunity to explore and develop both substantive and disciplinary knowledge across all units of work.

At KS4 students who choose to continue their studies in Drama will complete the Eduqas Drama GCSE course which has 3 components: Devising, Performance, Evaluation and Analysis. Students develop the necessary skills and prior knowledge to access the course during their KS3 experience in Drama as key concepts and performance skills are inbuilt. Students will not only perform the works of published playwrights, but challenge their own creative skills by devising a unique piece of theatre from a given stimulus set by the exam board. The newly introduced text of Noughts and Crosses has proven to be thought provoking and had captured the imagination of our students allowing them to explore a range of performance suggestions and design ideas to prepare for their written examination. Individuality is also a key idea within KS4 as the content, skills and styles students explore are tailored to each individual student. Alongside this it should be noted that not every student needs to perform as there are design pathways available to those who feel more suited to this avenue of theatre.

Outside of the classroom Drama students will be given the opportunity to enrich their knowledge and passion for the subject through a number of extra-curricular offers available as well as the potential for theatre trips.

All Drama Students at Southlands will be able to explore, experiment and express themselves in a safe and supportive non-judgemental environment when taking part in the Drama curriculum. Through their Drama career students will develop their thought processes and learn to articulate their ideas, opinions and feelings effectively.