Drama
Welcome to our Drama department.
Who We Are
Mr A Malyan - Curriculum Leader
Miss M Meanwell 
Key Stage 3
Year 7
Autumn Term
Basic Drama Skills
Students will learn:
- How to work effectively in teams.
- To communicate clearly.
- Basic staging and character skills
- How to create simple performances
Mime
Students will learn:
- Specific rules of Mime performance
- Specific mime skills
- Use of a reduced performance space
- Exaggeration of physical action for comedy and clarity in performance.
Spring Term
Mask
Students will learn:
- Specific rules of Mask performance
- How to create character
- How to communicate meaning non-verbally
Melodrama
Students will learn:
- The conventions of Melodrama
- How to create an effective melodrama character
- How to create a performance following the conventions of Melodrama
Summer Term
‘The Black Hearted Villain’
Students will learn:
- How to apply their Melodrama skills to a script
- How to interpret a script to create character
- How to communicate character and narrative through script work
- How to effectively stage a scripted performance
- Learning lines
Semiotics
Students will learn:
- What the term ‘Semiotics’ means
- How to analyse a script to find the semiotics
- How to communicate semiotics to an audience
- How to show status on stage
- How to communicate character relationships
- Different types of staging
Year 8
Autumn Term
Improvisation
Students will learn:
- How to improvise effectively
- Different types of improvisation
- How to use improvisation to help develop characterisation
Stage fighting
Students will learn:
- How to safely and effectively perform a variety of stage fighting moves
- How to create hostile and volatile moods and atmospheres building to well executed fight sequences
- How to develop context and character to communicate a story
Spring Term
Non-Naturalism
Students will learn:
- What non-naturalism is
- To develop specific non-naturalistic performance skills
- To create a variety of performance using non-naturalistic methods
Half-Mask
Students will learn:
- To develop the skills learnt in Mask last year and apply them to half-mask work
- To develop the use of dialogue within performance
- To create specific characters within set restraints
Summer Term
Commedia Dell’Arte
Students will learn:
- How to create stock characters with specific demands
- How to create comedy on performance
- To create short Lazzi performances focussing on slap-stick comedy
- How to stage and perform a Commedia script
Devising
Students will learn:
- What a stimulus is
- How to devise from a stimulus
- how to use a variety of different stimuli to create material
Key Stage 4
Examination Board: AQA www.aqa.org.uk
Drama is a popular and exciting subject within the school. The GCSE course offers students the opportunity to develop their performance skills and experiment with new styles of theatre. We try to keep most of the course in the practical form. Lessons are taken in a studio and you will be asked to work in pairs, small groups and large groups to create a variety of pieces of drama. You will research theatre companies, directors and practitioners and will learn to apply these to your work. You will have two performance exams, a Devised Performance Exam in Year 10 and a Scripted Performance Exam in Year 11. You will also be expected to complete some written work. You will write about your own work as well as the professional productions we will take you to see.
This is a course which is aimed at raising your performance skills and experiences of theatre, but also increases interpersonal and empathetic skills.
Assessment: Drama is 60% controlled assessment task (practical) and 40% written element. There is one written examination at the end of Year 11.
Progression: Drama at Emmbrook is a perfect route into A-level Theatre Studies that we offer in the sixth form. Both our GCSE and A-Level courses are the AQA exam board and so go very well together. However, Drama is a highly sought-after subject in both college and the workplace if A-Levels are not for you.
September 2019