Welcome to the

PERFORMING ARTS DEPARTMENT

Staff:

Melanie Cutler – Head of Performing Arts

Maggie Gaston – Dance Specialist and Community Co-ordinator

John Lonsdale – Drama Specialist and Deputy Headteacher

David Anderson – Drama Specialist and Assistant Head of Year

Matthew Morgan – Arts Technician

Accommodation:

We have a brand new state-of-the-art  purpose-built Drama and Dance block,

along with an existing Theatre/Performance venue.

In spite of its small size, the Performing Arts Department aims to make a significant impact on the cultural life of the school. We offer our pupils a diverse and wide range of stimuli which encourage the boys to develop their awareness, creativity, sensitivity, empathy and imagination. We encourage our students to develop both their collaborative skills along with their ability to work independently using their own initiative. We offer our boys a number of opportunities to devise their own pieces, to interpret existing works and to create work based on a specific genre or practitioner.

We also offer a wealth of activities for the boys to participate in after school, including theatre trips, performance evenings, drama groups and school plays. The department runs the House Drama and Public Speaking Competition every year and we work hard to support other subject areas, specifically to include English at Key Stage 3 and through facilitating the delivery of the Pastoral Curriculum.

Pupils in KS3 have one period of Performing Arts per week. At Y7 and Y8, this rotates in a half-yearly carousel between Drama and Dance. In KS4 GCSE students have five lessons per fortnight and nine lessons a fortnight at KS5.

  Our Aims:

1.  Year 7/8 Performing Arts

a)    To introduce pupils in Drama and Dance to the concept of the devising process

b)   To develop a skill base within Drama and Dance to allow access for all pupils

c)    To give firm structure to the creative elements of Performing Arts

d)   To introduce a basic language and vocabulary of Performing Arts

e)   To provide creative stimulation in both Drama and Dance

f)    To develop a critical awareness of creative work by self and others

g)   To develop skills associated with self-discipline, teamwork and ensemble playing

h)   To promote audience skills and experiencing live performance

2.  Year 9 Performing Arts

To encompass all Drama and Dance aims as for Year 7/8 and additionally:

a)    To extend the drama skills base and vocabulary into exploring text work, non-naturalistic drama and research skills

b)   To allow links to be made with Music, Art and integrated work via physical theatre

c)    To develop a basic understanding of technical aspects of theatre

3. Years 10 & 11: GCSE Drama syllabus (Edexcel specification)

To develop a language of performance to allow constructive appreciation of live drama  to be made; to refine skills of evaluation, responding and developing

a)    To develop acting-based skills to allow realistic characterisation and performances to take place

b)   To stimulate, motivate and extend pupils in a creative dimension, by means of the improvisation process derived from text stimuli.  From this to understand the elements of drama, performance genre and the role of all technical support activities

c)  To allow skills of sensitivity, empathy and varied states of emotional tension to be understood and applied – both in performance and in general life

d)   To build and maintain self-confidence and self-discipline for all pupils

e)   To allow teamwork to flourish in a practical and creative way

f)    To maximise the pupils’ potential in terms of specific examination grades

g)   To destroy any myth of drama being an area of low esteem

h)   To educate all pupils in safe working practices in a technical environment

i)     To see live theatre in both a critical and a life-enhancing way

4.  Performing Arts Advanced Level (OCR Performance Studies Specification and Edexcel Drama and Theatre Studies Specification)

Aims and objectives to include all under section 3 and additionally:

a.    To develop high-order performance skills, allied to theory and practitioners

b.    To allow synthesis of performing skills to develop across Drama, Dance and Music

c.    To transfer a skills base to allow students to work in a totally self-directed manner using high-order skills

d.    To develop a working and theoretical knowledge of a variety of technical aspects of theatre

e.    To obtain grades in excess of TMGs

5.  Community Arts

a.    To expand the theatre-going ‘culture’ into the Community Arts club

b.    To maintain links with USS in a mutually beneficial manner

c.    To develop further the opportunities for visiting theatre group and practitioners to use the school’s performance spaces for mutual benefit

d.    To maintain close working relationship with 2Engage Theatre Company

e.    To maintain and further develop links with Alsager, Sir William Stanier and Holmes Chapel Drama Departments

f.    To continue to work closely with Street Dance Academy

6.    Theatre Trips and Workshops

a.    To maintain and extend the provision of theatre-going to include all age groups within the school

b.    To enhance curricular provision by providing external workshops by theatre and dance professionals on as cost-effective a basis as possible

7.  House Drama and Public Speaking

a.    To provide a creative and entertaining balance to sports-based House Competitions

b.    To provide stimulating text-based drama to entertain and challenge the whole school-community

c.    To provide opportunities for pupil-based coaching and directing of drama pieces

d.    To raise the profile of Public Speaking as a valid and entertaining vehicle for debate

8.  Support for other Curricular Areas

a.    To facilitate the teaching of emotive topics using skills of empathy, sympathy, rapport e.g. bullying, sensitive moral issues of sex education.

b.    To appreciate varying arguments by role play in ‘conflict’ situations

c.    To support the English department in delivery of KS3 Shakespeare texts in performance

d.    To facilitate the use of Drama in any subject area at the request of any department

e.    To work in a mutually beneficial way with Music, Art and PE departments in cross-curricular activities

Curriculum:

We offer the boys a rich and challenging curriculum, which allows the boys to develop new skills and refine existing knowledge and awareness. The schemes combine performances devised by the boys along with script-based work.

Schemes include:                                

GCSE Drama

•  Oh What a Lovely War
• Chamber Theatre
• TIE
• A variety of script work
• Characterisation / Conventions workshops
• Slavery
• Generation X
• The Warrior
• The Miner’s Strike
• I Don’t Like Mondays
• Practitioners – Brecht, Artaud and Stanislavski.

A/S and A2 Level Drama

As specified by the OCR Performance Studies syllabus and the Edexcel Drama and Theatre Studies syllabus.

Practitioners/Playwrights/Choreographers include: Brecht, Artaud, Godber, , Berkoff, Lloyd Newson and Bob Fosse.

A unit is also based on The American Musical.

Other texts include: Equus, Arturo Ui and Dr Faustus.

 Extra-Curricular Activities

Extra-curricular Performing Arts is open to all pupils within the school, and opportunities to perform or provide technical support are wide ranging.

There is currently at Y7 and Y8 Drama club which meet one evening a week and are working towards both lunchtime and evening performances.

A Y8 Drama Ensemble also perform an annual play as part of a Drama Showcase event.

A Y9 ensemble is also in place recently performed an abridged version of Julius Caesar, as part of the National Shakespeare Schools Festival. A vast range of extra-curricular opportunities are available to KS4 and KS5; many participated in the National Connections event, performing at Theatr Clwyd and the National Theatre,London. A great number also embarked on a run at The Edinburgh Fringe and a tour ofNew Zealand.