Drama — Year 7

 

Drama Overview
Curriculum

Term 1: Introduction to Drama

Pupils will explore the rules of a drama classroom before looking at the difference between devised, improvised and scripted drama and building their confidence to perform for their class.

In groups, pupils perform a short scripted piece with a devised ending.

improvising
making up a scene as you go along

accept and build
the key to good improvising

devising
creating a scene with rehearsal time

stage left
everything on the actor's left of the stage

stage right
everything on the actor's right of the stage

down stage
everything on the front half of the stage (closest to audience)

up stage
everything on the back half of the stage (furthest from audience)

  • Spiritual
  • Moral
  • Social
  • Cultural

Develop the individual:
Pupils will learn teamwork skills and build confidence.

Create a supportive community:
Pupils will learn teamwork skills and build confidence.

Term 2: Exploring a Genre: Pantomime

Pupils will look at the British history of panto before exploring conventions of a traditional pantomime and the characteristics of stock characters.

In groups, pupils perform a short scene from a pantomime with a focus on characterisation.

facial expressions
showing emotion on the face to show how a character is feeling

stock characters
traditional characters

pantomime dame
a lead female character, traditionally played by a male

exaggeration
to make something bigger or more pronounced

direct address
to speak directly to the audience

hero/heroine
the character who saves the day

villain
the evil character

  • Spiritual
  • Moral
  • Social
  • Cultural

Develop the individual:
Pupils will learn teamwork skills and build confidence.

Create a supportive community:
Pupils will learn teamwork skills and build confidence.

Term 3: Devising Theatre: Bullying

Exploring the theme of bulling, pupil will devise a whole class performance looking at several devising techniques and theatrical conventions along the way.

Whole class performances will be recorded and evaluated by the pupils. Assessment focuses on team work and focus.

empathy
awareness and understanding of another person's feelings, situation or motives

thought tracking
saying out loud the character's inner thoughts at a particular moment

stereotype
a widely held but fixed and oversimplified image or idea of a particular type of person or thing

status
the level in society a character belongs to

hot-seating
questioning a character about his or her background, behaviour and motivation

choral speaking
more than one person saying the same line

freeze frame
a still picture of a moment in time

thought tunnel
a devising technique used to explore the thoughts of a character

slow motion
when a scene slows down to allow the audience to see a particular moment

  • Spiritual
  • Moral
  • Social
  • Cultural

Develop the individual:
Pupils will learn teamwork skills and build confidence. Pupils will look at the effects of bullying and statistics surrounding this.

Create a supportive community:
Pupils will learn teamwork skills and build confidence. Pupils will look at the effects of bullying and statistics surrounding this.

Term 4: Exploring a Genre: Mime and Masks

Using Trestle masks, pupils explore mime and mask work. They learn what makes effective mask work and put this into practice in a range of scenes. We will study history of mime and masks in theatre and the work of Famile Floz.

In groups, pupils devise and perform a short mime, using masks to help create characters.

exaggeration
to make something bigger or more pronounced

mime
to act without words

blocking
to decide where the actors will go and what they will do within a scene

  • Spiritual
  • Moral
  • Social
  • Cultural

Develop the individual:
Pupils will learn teamwork skills and build confidence. Pupils will learn about body language and how people react to this.

Create a supportive community:
Pupils will learn teamwork skills and build confidence. Pupils will learn about body language and how people react to this.

Term 5 and 6: Page to Stage: Chicken

In this unit, we explore the play ‘Chicken’ by Mark Wheeler. Written for young teens, the play’s central theme is Road Safety, so pupils investigate this hard hitting theme, alongside themes of peer pressure and relationships, learning drama and performance techniques along the way.

In groups, pupils perform a short scene from the play using techniques taught in class.

Key words
in term 6

  • Spiritual
  • Moral
  • Social
  • Cultural

Develop the individual:
Pupils will learn teamwork skills and build confidence. Pupils look at the themes of road safety, peer pressure and relationships.

Create a supportive community:
Pupils will learn teamwork skills and build confidence. Pupils look at the themes of road safety, peer pressure and relationships.