The drama course at Key Stage 3 provides students with the necessary knowledge and understanding. It covers a wide range of skills and activities for students to become familiar with the subject content.

Key Topics:

·         Scrip work and devising

·         Play Review

·         Characterisation

·         Lighting, Sound, Costume and Staging

·         Performance, rehearsal and improvisation

Key Themes:

·         Our Day Out by Willy Russell

·         A Christmas Carol

·         Shrek the Musical

·         Slavery

·         Joseph and The Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat

·         Dr. Faustus

·         Puppet Theatre

·         Stage Combat

·         Commedia Dell’Arte

·         Scales of Justices

·         Pantomimes

·         Frantic Assembly

·         Kes

·         Homelessness

·         Jukebox musicals.

GCSE Drama explores different skills and enables students to develop practitioner knowledge, text knowledge and written response in the form of a ‘creative log’ and play review.

The course is assessed through practical and written exams.

Component 1

Learners will participate in the creation, development and performance of a piece of devised theatre using the techniques of an influential theatre practitioner or genre in response to a stimulus set by the exam board.

Students produce:

·         A realisation of their devised theatre

·         Portfolio of supporting evidence

·         An evaluation of the final performance or design.

Component 2

·         Students study two extracts from the same text

·         Students participate in one performance using the sections of text from both extracts.

Component 3

·         Written exam – Questions on a Set Text and Live Theatre Review.