Drama
Year 7
Half Term 1
Haunted Mansion
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Pupils will begin their introduction to Drama the genre of horror, learning key skills, the routine in the studio and building relationships with each other in group work.
Pupils will be able to apply key skills such as freeze frame and create tension on stage in their game show to win prize money by staying overnight in the haunted mansion. This topic is engaging and inspires all students to achieve.
Pupils will consider the horror and reality TV genres and the contrasting features of both. They will develop a character using the 5 senses to deepen their characterisation.
Pupils will draw upon their understanding of ghost stories and punctuation such as ellipsis to express their character’s feelings while competing in the game show.
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Freeze frame, hot seating, soundscape, monologues, the teacher in role, tension.
Pupils will be able to adopt, create and sustain a range of roles, responding appropriately to others in roles.
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Visit the theatre, watch live performances online, read fiction, and keep abreast of current affairs.
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Read ghost stories. Watch clips of reality TV. Extra-curricular opportunities are integral to our curriculum, and we will be offering a whole school production.
Half Term 2
Pantomime
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Pupils will use the style of Pantomime over the half term leading up to the festive break. They will learn and develop new skills and be able to understand the key features within the style which include Direct Address, Audience Participation, Stock Characters, Exaggeration and Narration.
Pupils will be expected to work independently and as an ensemble throughout this unit. They will explore the history of Pantomime through a range of stock characters and use well known fairy tales to develop performances incorporating the new key features they have learnt.
There will be the use of Teacher in Role to demonstrate what is expected of students and to support them in building up their own confidence.
Within this topic, students will rehearse and perform a piece of Pantomime script. They will also start to evaluate what went well in their own performances and be able to evaluate their peer's performance as well.
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Freeze Frames, Transitions, Body as Prop, Comedy, Stock Characters, Direct Address, Audience Participation, Narration, Exaggeration, Gestures, Facial Expressions and Body Language.
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Visit the theatre, watch live performances online, read fiction, and keep abreast of current affairs.
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Watch examples of Pantomime and discuss it with your child.
Extra-curricular opportunities are integral to our curriculum, we will be offering opportunities to perform.
Half Term 3
War
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All pupils will respond to a new stimulus each week. Pupils will be able to explore a range of stimuli and justify their creative decisions. Stimuli will include Poems, Music, Costume, Posters and Letters.
Pupils will have the opportunity to continue to work in smaller groups and take on leadership roles throughout this unit; whilst also taking part in a whole class performance.
Pupils will work safely in the studio. They will utilize their knowledge of skills and techniques in order to devise creative performances.
Rehearse, perform their own work & evaluate that of others as well as their own
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War, Devising, Stimuli, Poem, Letter, Costume, Music, Atmosphere, Cannon, Unison, Narrator, Flashforward, Flashback, Still Image, Slow Motion, Mime.
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Watch war documentaries or/and the news to understand the impact of War. WW1 or Current Events.
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Conduct research on WW2 to broaden your knowledge and understanding to use within devised performances.
Half Term 4
Our Day Out
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Pupils will analyse the themes and characters in the play ‘Our Day Out’ by Willy Russell. The play is well-known and revolves around a group of poor children from Liverpool. The themes include living with a lack of education and opportunity due to social class. Pupils will begin to develop empathy for others and an awareness of other people's situations and circumstances.
Pupils will practise script reading and be introduced to stage directions. They will also have the opportunity to work on characterisation through the use of Body Language and Vocal Techniques throughout this topic. Pupils will be able to put into practice rehearsal techniques and strategies to consider the motivation of characters and their relationship towards others.
Pupils will work on and off script within this topic. They will devise scenes using characters from within the play to explore their personality and life and think about how they would react in different situations.
Pupils will explore the use of Cross-Cutting and how it can be used to showcase different scenes to the audience, focus on positioning and the correct terms for this on stage, consider the impact having a lack of education has on a child, be able to follow stage directions and be introduced to techniques such as Flashforward and Flashback in order to develop their scenes to make them engaging for the audience to watch.
Pupils will work safely in the studio.
Pupils will rehearse, perform their own work & evaluate that of others as well as their own.
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Stage directions, Positioning, Background, Themes, Education, Poverty, Social Class, Accent, Character Relationship and Eye-contact.
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Visit the theatre, watch live performances online, read fiction, keep abreast of current affairs.
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Watch ‘Our Day Out’ to get an insight into the time period and the character relationships.
Half Term 5
Spy School
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Pupils will use the theme of spies to explore the practitioner Stanislavski’s method of Naturalism.
Pupils will be able to perform in a naturalistic style.
They will apply given circumstances, emotional memory, magic if and super objectives in rehearsal & performance while developing their spy character and considering the concept of a double agent.
New practitioner-continue to follow the usual lesson structure: rehearse, perform, evaluate to explore style and form.
Rehearse, perform their own work & evaluate that of others as well as their own.
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Given circumstances, emotional memory, magic if, super objectives, interview, mannerisms, role on the wall, hot seating, verbal evaluation, using drama terminology when creating or evaluating work, audience awareness .
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Visit the theatre, watch live performances online, read fiction, keep abreast of current affairs.
Read Storm Breaker series by Anthony Horowitz.
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Information on Stanislavski can be found here
Half Term 6
Musical Theatre
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Pupils will use the style of Musical Theatre over the half term. They will apply skills from the disciplines of Acting, Dance and Singing.
Pupils will be able to work as an ensemble to perform repertoire from famous musicals.
Pupils will explore a range of musicals: The Lion King, The Greatest Showman, Matilda, Shrek, Aladdin, Wicked, Pupils will Apply verbal/ physical chorusing to communicate the theme of the musical to an audience.
Pupils will continue working safely in the studio. They will apply skills learnt across the year. They will implement a more advanced range of skills in their performances and be able to justify their choices in detail.
Rehearse, perform their own work & evaluate that of others as well as their own.
This topic is rich, and engaging and inspires all students to achieve.
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Costume, chorusing, exaggeration, timing, freeze frame, thought tracking, lyrics, levels, body language, narration, cue.
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Visit the theatre, watch live performances online, read fiction, and keep abreast of current affairs.
Watch clips of the shows on YouTube. Extra-curricular opportunities are integral to our curriculum, we will be offering a Musical Theatre club and whole school production.
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