Drama is a human need. Throughout time and culture, human beings have enacted events in order to understand them better or gain power over them. Drama at Kingsbridge Community College is taught in a structured and detailed manner that strikes a balance between exploring process drama (learning by imagined experience) and product or skills based drama – the craft of theatre making. We develop schemes of work that provoke engagement through our careful choice of theme and topic and apply early in our teaching the principals and assessment criteria that the exam boards recognise. Our lessons typically start with a starter or warm up, an introduction to the stimulus, a focussing convention or strategy that frames the whole group work or small group work and an opportunity to prepare, perform and evaluate in a safe and supportive studio environment.

Extra-curricular activities and opportunities are extremely important in the Drama Department and include The Actors Circle, The Shakespeare Schools Festival, School Musical as well as House initiatives such as Whose Line Is It Anyway.

 

GCSE Edexcel Drama explorations that include:

Binge – a UNIT 1 thematic exploration  beginning with the Gin Laws of the 18th Century.

The Elephant Man by Bernard Pomerance – a text exploration of the story of John Merick.

Conventions and Explorative Strategies – how we use drama to communicate meaning and explore themes and topics.

Next Stop High School – Devising and performing a complete Theatre in Education style play as part of the Year 6 transition initiatives.

Monolgues and Duologes – performance skills looking at voice, movement, character and communication on stage.

Complete script performance – as a whole group, performing an edited full length play.

Devising from a stimulus creating a complete piece of work in small groups to performance standard.

Edexcel AS UNIT 1 - Stanislavski and Naturalism through an exploration Miss Julie by August Strindberg and physical and stylised drama through an exploration of Metamorphosis by Steven Berkoff.

UNIT 2  - Practical performance of a complete script and performance of two minute monologues from a selection of plays.

Edexcel A2 Unit 3 - A devised play for an identified audience based on a stimulus

Unit 4  - A practical and theoretical exploration of Woyzeck by George Bchner and a Shakespeare text for the final written paper of the exam.