Through drama, pupils are given the opportunity and encouragement to develop and demonstrate their creative talents. As with all arts, drama involves imagination and feeling, and helps children make sense of the world, by the creating imagined characters and situations, and the relationships and events that they encounter. The National Curriculum for English reflects the importance of spoken language in pupils’ development across the whole curriculum – cognitively, socially and linguistically. Spoken language underpins the development of reading and writing, and drama is uniquely positioned to explicitly address these concepts.
Drama is taught progressively as a discrete subject once a week, across the key stages, by specialist drama teachers, each year building upon previous learning. The lessons are closely linked to the topic being studied by the children, whilst also equipping them with a deep understanding of drama as an exploratory and performance medium. As the children progress, their increasing knowledge and understanding of how the elements of drama work, enables them to effectively shape performances, making use of language, space, symbolism and metaphor. Additionally, evaluation of performance work plays an important part in the drama curriculum, as children learn to develop their analytical skills, considering how drama techniques and strategies have been applied to convey meaning, whilst fostering an expectation of high-quality spoken English.
Across the curriculum, pupils are encouraged to take part in a range of drama activities, including exploration of the class book in English to support the development of reading and writing, re-enactment of historical events and theatre visits to develop cultural appreciation. The use of drama as an informative tool has also been highly successful during a variety of special events, such as Internet Safety Day. The school regularly hosts visiting theatre companies, such as Big Foot, as part of our aim to ensure all children have access to high-quality performance.
The school celebrates pupils’ drama work in two performances each year: Christmas Nativities and class assemblies. In addition, Year 6 pupils will participate in a Leavers’ Production showcasing their performance skills to friends and family. All pupils are actively involved in these performances and take on their own acting role, as well as supporting in set designing and prop making. Children who show a particular interest in drama, are also able to join either the drama club or film acting club.