Drama

Key Skills for future employment or study:

• In Drama you are nearly always working with a group of people of varying sizes, abilities and personalities. Drama will allow you to develop your patience, ability to compromise and communication skills. Key for employment outside of school. 

• You will learn discipline. This skill makes you more aware of your body language and more able to adapt your behaviour for various situations. It’s not so much about acting as being aware of your body language and how to adapt to distracting, uncomfortable or sensitive situations.

• Drama stimulates you to be constantly creative. Of course, nothing can actually teach creativity but it is a muscle that needs regular exercise and stretching. Drama will force you to regularly come up with exciting, functional and convincing ideas, to a deadline and this ability will stay with you.

• Empathy is a really important life skill. When you act in Drama you put yourself in to another person’s shoes and try to identify with them and their situation. This is an invaluable skill that will open your mind, improve the way you interact with people and is especially useful if you are considering a career in caring, teaching or social work.

• Analysing Drama productions allows you to develop your critical thinking skills. This is useful for a number of jobs and is great if you are planning on taking English Literature, Media Studies or Film Studies at degree level. 

Opportunities you might not have considered: 

Drama opens doors to a plethora of career pathways. The subject demonstrates great personal resilience, leadership and collaborative learning.  Currently the UK's creative industries contribute £92billion to the economy and the number of people employed within the creative industries stood at just over two million, accounting for 6% of all UK jobs. 

Having Drama at GCSE or Alevel is an attractive option for pupils wanting to go into creative or professional careers where team work and leadership is necessary. 

Drama GCSE can also be used as a pathway to A Level and University  as Drama and Theatre studies are options for Undergraduate and Masters Degrees  and/or have established societies  at  every top UK University. 

What does our GCSE course look like? 

In GCSE Drama we follow the OCR specification. 

The Drama course is divided into three elements to allow all students to explore different elements of Drama and Theatre.  These are challenging and require a high standard of both performance and written work, but our pupils find this course rewarding and exciting. Pupils must only select drama if they have taken it as a year 9 option. 

Devising Drama 30%  

Pupils will prepare a performance based on their response to a stimulus. They will perform this to a live audience. This is marked by the Drama Department, a video of the performance is sent to the exam board for moderation (20 Marks)

To go alongside this pupils will also develop a portfolio of work detailing their process. This is marked by the class teacher and sent to the exam board for moderation. ( 40 Marks)

Presenting and Performing Text 30%

 Pupils will prepare two extracts of a play text for a performance. This will be in front of a visiting examiner. (40 Marks)

Prior to the performance pupils will complete a concept pro-froma which details how they have prepare their text for performance.  This will be marked by the visiting examiner ( 20 Marks) 

Performance and Response - Written Examination 40%

1hr 30 mins ( 80 Marks). 

Pupils will study the text Blood Brothers and will answer exam questions focused on directors vision and communicate with an audience.

They will also write a review on a live performance they will see during the course. 

Please note: that the Drama course has got a 70% written work weighting. 

All aspects of this course depend upon the ability to establish and maintain a committed  and focused working relationship with others in the group and the willingness to perform in front of an audience are required  in all areas of the course.

Is there anything else I should consider and what are the career pathways?

For more information on this subject please contact:-

Miss A Copsey  (Head of Drama)

a.copsey@thestreetlyacademy.co.uk