Subject Overview

Drama is a powerful subject that can instil creativity, self-expression and nourish a students’ imagination. In this course students will explore concepts and themes outside of what they already know, enhancing their individual cultural capital and challenging their perceptions. It will enable students to consider the breadth and depth of the human character and recreating and interpreting others’ ideas. 

GCSE drama produced students with the opportunity to explore performance texts in both a practical and a written format. The course encourages students to work collaboratively with others, responding to a range of stimuli whilst also developing their own individual acting and evaluative skills. Students will spend time discovering the roles and responsibilities of a performer as well as that of a director and designer, whilst exploring the processes involved in making a production onstage and behind the scenes. 

Course Information and Assessment

The course is divided into three components: 

Component 1: Devising (40% of overall mark) 

Students will develop a devised piece from a stimulus, culminating in an evening performance to an invited audience. Students will then produce a 900-word portfolio that analyses and evaluates the devising process and the final performance. 

Component 2: Performance from text (20% of overall marks) 

Students will perform two key extracts from a performance text to an external examiner in year 11. Students will need to be familiar with the whole play script and will be expected to learn lines as home learning. Performances will either be solo, in pairs or in a group as decided by the drama teacher. 

Component 3: Theatre Makers in Practice- written exam (40% of total marks) 

Section A: Bringing Texts to Life. Students will practically explore and study characters and themes within a given play script. In the section of the exam, they will need to explore a given extract of the play script to show their understanding of choices available to a director, designer and performer within the play. 

Section B: Live Theatre Evaluation. Students will attend a live theatre show as chosen by the drama teacher. They will explore the performance and design choices, preparing notes to take into the final exam, where they will be required to analyse and evaluate the live theatre performance. 

Progression

In studying GCSE drama, students will develop skills such as collaboration, communication and an ability to amend and refine work to create the best possible outcome. The course allows students to be prepared to study Drama or Performing Arts at A-level and for a variety of vocational performance courses.