Drama

We aim to offer students a range of extracurricular Drama opportunities at Goffs. We run our extra-curricular Drama group, GAPA (Goffs Academy of Performing Arts) weekly. GAPA has presented a number of performances to keen audiences including “The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe” and many original plays that have been written by our talented script writers. GAPA is offered to all key stages and runs weekly when the main school production rehearsals aren’t in full swing.

From September to Christmas extracurricular Drama is focused on preparing for our whole school production. The department has presented a number of successful large scale school productions including “Bugsy Malone”, “Beauty and the Beast” and “Annie”. The school show gives all students that want to be a part of this experience opportunity to showcase their talents and create school memories that will last a life time. We also give students a chance to be part of our backstage crew as well as on stage as performers to offer as many opportunities as possible.

In KS3 Drama we build student’s Drama knowledge and skills whilst exploring a range of styles of Theatre. In year 7 we teach students the foundations of creating a character using physical and vocal skills. In year 7 students explore the script of Charlie and The Chocolate Factory and showcase their skills whilst stepping in to the shoes of the key characters. Students also get the opportunity to write their own scripts and understand how to write and utilise stage directions. Students have the opportunity to create performances in a range of styles for example one of the most memorable Year 7 experiences is creating exaggerated silent movie style scenes in a Charlie Chaplin style.

In Year 7 students are privileged to receive three hours of Drama a fortnight. One of these hours is used for enrichment sessions where we explore important social topics through the medium of Drama. These topics include topics such as Prejudice, Displaced people and Body image.

In Drama lessons at Goffs students have the opportunity to develop key transferable skills such as effective collaboration, time management, independence, resilience, planning, creating and communication skills.

In Year 8 Drama students continue to develop their characterisation skills exploring a range of styles and scripts. In Year 8 students learn about the influential style of theatre, Commedia Dell’ Arte, and have the opportunity to embody the stock characters whilst aiming to create comedy for their audience.

Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet is a script explored within Year 8 giving students the opportunity to understand the plot, genre, characters and themes.

Student’s also explore a range of topical based theatre and explore significant themes such as arson, knife crime and gang culture using Drama techniques.

Student’s will continue to develop key transferable skills by regularly collaborating with others and they will be encouraged to lead/direct their peers during group tasks.

The Year 9 MPC year is used to build students’ knowledge of a wide range of theatrical styles and practitioners. Building blocks of performance applying rehearsal techniques. Building independence within rehearsals and resilience. Students will also be given the opportunity to watch and evaluate streamed theatre (On the Digital Theatre Platform) and be introduced to key theatrical design elements. The intention of this is to broaden students understanding of the wide job prospects in the field.

In GCSE Drama we study the OCR specification which requires students to complete three key components. These components include;

Component 01/02: Devising drama

Students research and explore a stimulus, work collaboratively and create their own devised drama. They complete a portfolio of evidence during the devising process, give a final performance of their drama, and write an evaluation of their own work

Component 03: Presenting and performing texts

Students develop and apply theatrical skills in acting or design by presenting a showcase of two extracts from a performance text. The chosen extracts must allow sufficient exploration of dialogue, plot and/or subplot, and characterisation for students to work in depth on their acting or design skills.

Component 04: Drama: Performance and response

Students explore practically a whole performance text, and demonstrate their knowledge and understanding of how drama is developed, performed and responded to. They also analyse and evaluate a live theatre performance. We study Blood Brothers as our set text for this unit.

In A Level Theatre Studies, we study the AQA specification which requires students to complete three key components. These components include;

Component 1: Drama and theatre

What's assessed?

• Knowledge and understanding of drama and theatre
•  Study of two set plays, one chosen from List A, one chosen from List
• Analysis and evaluation of the work of live theatre makers

How it's assessed

Written exam: 3 hours
Open book
80 marks
40% of A-level

A number of live theatre visits are a compulsory part of the A Level course and we endeavour to take students to a variety of contemporary and challenging theatre.

Component 2: Creating original drama (practical)

What's assessed?

• Process of creating devised drama
• Performance of devised drama
• Devised piece must be influenced by the work and methodologies of one prescribed practitioner

How it's assessed

Working notebook (40 marks)
Devised performance (20 marks)
60 marks in total
30% of A-level
This component is marked by teachers and moderated by AQA.

We aim to arrange workshop visits with professional theatre companies, such as Frantic Assembly and The Paper Birds come in to deliver workshops to A Level students in order to inspire their own practical work and ideas.

Component 3: Making theatre (practical)

What's assessed?

• Practical exploration and interpretation of three extracts (Extract 1, 2 and 3) each taken from a different play
• Methodology of a prescribed practitioner must be applied to Extract 3
• Extract 3 is to be performed as a final assessed piece
• Reflective report analysing and evaluating theatrical interpretation of all three extracts

How it's assessed

Performance of Extract 3 (40 marks)
Reflective report (20 marks)
60 marks in total
30% of A-level
This component is marked by AQA.