In Drama, we develop creative potential alongside growing a mature understanding of people, relationships, and the world around us. It is a place to explore, imagine and devise. We will develop communication, social, teamwork and organisation skills to aid success in college life and beyond.

The Drama curriculum uses the same binary themes for each year group in Key Stage 3 as English. These themes are used as a base for the topics throughout the year. The topics run termly meaning there are 3 topics a year and each topic has a critical drama skill connected to it. These are devising (creating unique drama through trial and error), scripted (adapting and bringing scripts to life), and understanding (exploring the world through Drama). This allows students to develop practically and creatively across all of Key Stage 3.

In Year 7, students explore basic theatre skills and then apply these to the genre of Pantomime to develop practical characterisation skills. They will then use the script Ernie’s Incredible Illucinations to explore how ideas are staged and perfected. Finally they will be ‘hired’ as junior detectives to solve a murder mystery, and they will practise their storytelling. 

In Year 8, the students start with a topic themed around the book The Arrival by Shaun Tan, which widens their character studies and links to themes of immigration. They then move to a devising module based around Urban Legends and will devise their own for modern audiences. Finally, they will develop their physical theatre skills alongside the study of the play The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time.

In Year 9, they will start with the study of Noughts and Crosses, allowing them to bring to life the themes and ideas explored in the English classroom. They will then use The Cautionary Tales as their stimulus for their devising topic. Their final term in Key Stage 3 aims to develop their understanding of how drama can be used to discuss complex topics by using the Hillsborough Disaster as a starting point to apply Brechtian acting techniques.