Dance and Drama

Intent and Vision

In Dance and Drama we have the Ravens Wood vision at heart of our curriculum planning and it has informed the learning journey of our students. Our vision in Dance and Drama is for all students to develop a broad appreciation of the value of Performing Arts subjects. The creative sector is increasingly interdisciplinary, and our provision encourages students to combine a range of mediums in exciting ways. Students will experience participating in engaging activities as performers, theatre makers and audience members; and will gain a wealth of treasured memories from their lessons and extra-curricular partaking.

Key Concepts that Underpin the Curriculum

Creating and performing a character through vocal and physical skills
Using explorative strategies and rehearsal techniques to create drama performance
Performing Dance using physical, technical, expressive and mental skills
Using choreographic devices to create dance performance
Analysis and evaluation of live or recorded performance
Analysis and evaluation of own work
Effective collaboration and self-discipline

Key Features of Learning

We believe the best way of doing this is teaching students in a highly practical setting. Topics often begin with teacher- led activities, followed by a series of facilitated workshops that allow students to collaborate with others and work independently. Creativity is best nurtured through play, and so enjoyment and fun is at the heart of our lessons.

How Does our Curriculum Shape Learners?

Our curriculum helps students to develop knowledge and understanding of a wide range of Performing Arts disciplines, and an appreciation of the value of the Arts. Alongside this, our curriculum is instrumental in developing students’ confidence, communication skills, organisation, and self-discipline. Our curriculum allows students to broaden their currency, character and cultural capital.

The Learning Journey: End Points for Each Academic Year

Year 13	By the end of year 13, students will have acquired knowledge and understanding to make an informed decision about what makes exciting theatre for a contemporary audience. This will underpin students’ work across practical, creative and theoretical components. Students will have developed knowledge and understanding of how a range of theatre makers collaborate in the making of theatre: director, performer and designers. Students will have a deep understanding of practitioners’ methodologies, styles and conventions and will be able to deploy this understanding through extended group performance. Through performance students will display mastery of these given styles and techniques through vocal, physical and collaborative skills. Furthermore, students’ knowledge of practitioners’ methodologies will be drawn upon in the creation of original concepts of classic plays, reinvented for a 21st century audience. In this concept, students will be able to also consider the social, historical, cultural and political context of the play, the playwright’s artistic intentions, and the original performance conditions of the play. Students will be able to express their concepts verbally and through extended writing, and will include ideas that would work in practice. Students will develop analytical skills, and will be able to deconstruct how live performances have been created, and will be able to make recommendations for how a performance could be created from a written source. Students will become accomplished writers; fluently analysing and evaluating their own work and that of others, and making specific connections to wider contexts.
Year 12	By the end of Year 12, students will have studied the social, historical, political and cultural contexts of set play texts; and will be able apply this understanding to practical and theoretical work. Responding to given stimuli, students will be able to devise an original performance, working collaboratively with others. Students will be able to undertake self-directed research to explore the work of existing theatre makers and will be able to utilise this knowledge in the devising process. Students will know how to use a range of explorative strategies and rehearsal techniques appropriately and confidently. In performance, students will be able to portray a character through vocal and physical skills; in both scripted and devised work. Students will be able to document their own devising process through extended writing- analysing and evaluating their own creative decisions with clarity and sophistication.
Year 11	By the end of Year 11, students will be able to write from the perspective of performer, designer and theatre critic. Students will understand the context of set plays and be able to make appropriate decisions for how performers and designers might realise these contexts in performance. Students will be able to take part actively as audience members and evaluate live theatre. Within this, students will be able to give detailed analysis of the performance they have seen and show a personal response to the performance. Students will be able to undertake performance or design roles in the realisation of key extracts from published plays. Through this, students will be able to demonstrate practically application of appropriate skills for given role/s.
Year 10	By the end of Year 10, students will be able to write from the perspective of performer, designer and theatre critic. Students will understand the context of set plays and be able to make appropriate decisions for how performers and designers might realise these contexts in performance. Students will be able to take part actively as audience members and evaluate live theatre. Within this, students will be able to give detailed analysis of the performance they have seen and show a personal response to the performance. Students will be able to undertake performance or design roles in the realisation of key extracts from published plays. Through this, students will be able to demonstrate practically application of appropriate skills for given role/s.
Year 9	By the end of Year 9, students will continue to develop and expand upon the skills, knowledge and understanding gained in year 7 and 8. In Drama, students will explore a contemporary theatre practitioner: Frantic Assembly. Students will be able to devise small performances centred around Frantic Assembly’s core methodologies, as well as perform sections from a play produced by the practitioners. Students will be able to consider and apply intentions of practitioners and performers alike, and use considered context to enhance their performances. Students will explore published plays from a variety of eras and consider and expand on connecting ideas and themes. Students will become more competent with performing given characters from a script, as well as enhancing previously learnt devising techniques. Throughout all topics students will expand and build on previous knowledge and understanding of evaluating performances and using key vocabulary in pieces of analysis and evaluation.
Year 8	By the end of Year 8, students will build on the skills, knowledge and understanding gained in year 7 Performance Studies. In Dance, students will be able to differentiate between different contemporary dance techniques such as Release, Cunningham and Neo-classical. This is through study of contrasting choreographers: Christopher Bruce and Hofesh Shechter. Students will learn about Bruce's ‘Ghost Dances' and the political oppression in Chilie under Augusto Pinochet's regime. Students will embody the characters of the Ghosts, and choreograph their own trios that fuses neo-classical vocabulary, contact work, animalist imagery and athleticism. Following on from this, students will explore the theme of conformism within Shechter’s ‘Sun’, and how conformism has had negative and positive impacts on societies. Students will learn how to translate abstract ideas into Dance by selecting appropriate movement vocabulary and applying choreographic devices. Students will undertake performance of Shechter’s unique movement style; using the spine in undulatingly complex patterns, with a sense of fluidity, ease, and finding impulses in the movement through breath. In Drama, students will have an understanding of two theatre practitioners: Stanislavski and Brecht. Students will be able to apply practitioner methodologies to their own devised performances. Throughout all topics, students will start to consider what ‘artistic intentions’ are, and how they can be achieved. Students will begin to consider the impact they can have on an audience through their work, and will invent their own artistic intentions. Students will be given a stimulus from a historical event and will create a performance to have an intended impact on the audience. Students will create a non-naturalistic piece that utilises their knowledge of practitioner methodology and explorative strategies.
Year 7	By the end of Year 7, students will have been introduced to Dance and Drama as performers, creators and audience members. Students will study a broad range of performances and become confident with a variety of topics; varying from Shakespeare to modern Musicals and will learn about how themes and ideas can be communicated through performance. Students will have participated in a range of performance styles and techniques and will be able to confidently use skills such as; mime, physical theatre, Shakespeare, musical theatre, contemporary dance and jazz dance. Students will be able to perform fluently in scripted and devised pieces, as well as set dance routines and choreograph material that they can perform independently without teacher support. As audience members students will learn how to give others constructive feedback and will be challenged to use key vocabulary in their responses. Students will take part in a whole school production, and will learn the importance of ensemble role for a large scale production. Students will also secure knowledge in the fundaments of technical rehearsals, and other practical aspects of putting on a show, such as technical rehearsals. The topics that will enable the students to develop these skills will be The Greatest Showman, Romeo and Juliet, West Side Story, Noughts and Crosses.