Drama

Subject intent

KS4 Drama

Why choose AQA for GCSE Drama

Our specification engages and encourages students to become confident performers and designers with the skills they need for a bright and successful future.

Because performance is paramount, we’ve built in as much opportunity as possible for students to do what they like best – participate in performance.

All students devise drama.

All students explore texts practically and work on two text-based performances.

Students can choose to develop as a:

• performer
• designer (lighting, sound, set, costume, puppets)
• performer and designer.

Whichever option they choose, students can be sure to gather many invaluable skills, both theatrical and transferable, to expand their horizons.

Aiming for success

Our written exam paper is designed to help all students realise their full potential.

We use a variety of question styles and ask students to combine what they’ve learned about how drama is performed with their practical experience and imagination.

When setting the paper, quality of marking is at the forefront of our minds. We know how important it is that your students get results that reflect their achievements.

Clear progression to AS and A-level

This specification ensures continuity for students progressing from GCSE Drama to AS and A-level Drama and Theatre.

Students who go on to AS or A-level are already familiar with studying a whole set text for the written paper. They have built solid foundations in reviewing a live theatre production and in interpreting key extracts.

All of these aspects feature in the AS and A-level as well as the GCSE.

Transferable skills

Students learn to collaborate with others, think analytically and evaluate effectively. They gain the confidence to pursue their own ideas, reflect and refine their efforts. Whatever the future holds, students of GCSE Drama emerge with a toolkit of transferable skills, applicable both in further studies and in the workplace.

Link to KS4 specification

Drama specification

KS4 Curriculum plan

KS3 Drama

Communicating through performance whilst empowering students to explore the world with empathy, creativity and confidence.

Statement of Intent

Our curriculum is designed to provide a layering of skills over time and encourage the development of the students’ critical facility allowing them to progress towards becoming reflective, independent and self-directing learners and human beings.

The curriculum at KS3 prepares students for KS4 by developing the skills required for performing devised and scripted work and evaluating and analysing their own performance and that of others.  The drama experiences of students at KS2 can be vastly different, so the curriculum is designed with the assumption that students may have had no previous experience, but equally with the flexibility to allow students with more experience to flourish.

Essentially, the content of the three-year KS3 programme follows a similar pattern in Year 7, Year 8 and Year 9; using skills to communicate meaning, working with the language of scripts and creating stories through devising. In Year 7, the learning is teacher-led and provides the students with the building blocks required for all dramatic performance, with texts and stimuli chosen for accessibility and maximum engagement. In Year 8, the level of difficulty increases in terms of the stimuli and texts chosen from the canon of dramatic literature. The genres studied require more of a reflection on the wider world. The application of the basic skills and techniques is more precise and assured, and the level of independence expected from the students also increases. This increases again at year 9 with more precise links to the GCSE curriculum.

Mastery of the subject emerges over time through the experience of each successive performance. Re-teach happens as an inherent and embedded part of the subject. For example, throughout the rehearsal process, students respond immediately to live feedback to reflect on and refine their performances before their final assessment. While a particular final performance will not be explicitly revisited, the skills used in that performance will be explicitly revisited in the following project.

We want our students to become creatives who are passionate and enthusiastic but who feel that Drama is enjoyable AND challenging. They will have high expectations of the quality of their work and show that they understand the value of written evaluation and analysis as a way of developing their skills as a performer. We want our students to have a positive attitude towards the subject; an understanding that Drama is not just ‘fun’ but requires discipline. An understanding of the transferable skills that Drama provides, even for those who haven’t opted for the subject at KS4. These skills are for life – building relationships, a sense of place, effective communication and self-agency.