Drama Department 

 

Drama at Doha College is delivered through Years 7 – 13 by specialist teachers. In KS3, students have one lesson of drama per week. At KS4, they have the option of choosing GCSE Drama (Edexcel).  Post-16 Drama is currently offered. This is a 1 A-Level equivalent course, which offers dedicated acting students the opportunity to study Drama in a vocational context. This course is ideal preparation for those students who wish to go on to study Drama either at University or at Drama School. Future plans include the introduction of an AS Drama and Theatre Arts course in September 2005.

Drama is part of young people’s core educational entitlement in the National Curriculum Orders. It exists at Doha College in its own right as an academic subject at GCSE and Post-16 A-Level

As a Department, we have defined Drama as being

‘the collaborative exploration and analysis of meaning through the enactment of events ‘

We believe that the Drama  we deliver at Doha College promotes individual self-confidence, encourages social cooperation and enhances creativity. Drama’s distinctiveness lies in the fact that our work takes place in a fictional environment with clearly defined boundaries; when acting as someone else, somewhere else, students look at their lives, identities, values and culture in a place where their real identity and status are not at stake. Drama enables us to symbolise the world in ways that engage the intellect and the emotions.

Through Drama, students at Doha College can develop their ‘emotional literacy ‘ and analytical awareness by seeing the world imaginatively from other perspectives. 

In Year 7 students at Doha College are expected to meet and explore a range of dramatic techniques, developed and extended in Year 8.  By Year 9 the emphasis is increasingly on the choices they make for themselves when deciding how to interpret texts, develop ideas and explore situations through performance. When pupils are making, performing and responding to Drama, they are developing the skills and understanding that are central to achieving real progress in the subject.

Drama develops thinking, speaking and listening, reading, writing and critical analysis through emotional and imaginative engagement.

QCA have identified 4 central concepts in their KS3 teaching strategy;

  • Expectations

  • Engagement

  • Progression

  • Transformation

These concepts have a particular resonance in the Drama Department where we have an expectation that students will experience disciplined, imaginative explorations of personal and interpersonal situations, where engagement in drama is fundamental, where progression is both creative and analytical and where experiential learning can lead to the transformation of understanding and attitudes.

We have a clear expectation of pupils’ experience of drama at Doha College;

  • Students will develop their use of dramatic techniques to explore ideas, issues and dramatic texts

  • Students will have the opportunity to convey character and atmosphere in scripted plays or improvisations

  • Students will develop an appreciation of the structure and organisation of plays

  • Students will be able to evaluate and analyse the structure, meaning and impact of plays they have studied, read, watched or in which they have taken part.

Creating Drama; this involves working alone or with others to shape ideas into actions and exploring the conventions, resources and techniques of drama with increasing confidence.

Performing drama; this does not necessarily mean taking part in a public performance. It refers to the work of a class exploring, preparing and sharing ideas through enactment. Key aspects of performance are;

  1. sustaining  a role

  2. interpreting a role

  3. communicating with an audience through voice, gesture, movement, timing and space

  4. creating a dramatic atmosphere through appropriate sound, lighting and design

  5. working cooperatively with others.

Responding to drama; this involves students in reflecting on their won experience of drama. Responses can be emotional or intellectual, individual or shared, spoken or written.