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Miss JuliusHead of Performing Arts

Drama at The Wilnecote School is taught by Miss Julius, who has taught at Wilnecote since 2015. Miss Julius has been a Drama teacher since 2009 and taught in Birmingham before spending two years teaching in China and then joined Wilnecote.

Alongside teaching Drama Miss Julius leads the Performing Arts Faculty, is a member of the school’s safeguarding team and Interim Assistant Headteacher. This means that she has a range of skills and expertise alongside her subject specific knowledge.

The Drama and Music departments work closely together to create an innovative and engaging curriculum and offer students a variety of opportunities to develop their talents, skills and interests in the Performing Arts.

Vision for Drama at The Wilnecote School

 

The Drama Department has one simple aim, to find and nurture talent. Through work in lessons and a range of extra-curricular opportunities, the department provides a platform for students to share and develop their talents. These talents are recognised, appreciated and celebrated.

The department also aims to acknowledge students hard work through ‘star of the week’ phone calls and department student of the month awards as well as awarding Value Points in lessons. This is an important aspect of the department as it aims to encourage enthusiasm and hard work as well as to foster strong relationships with parents and carers.

The Drama department consists of two main teaching rooms which can be opened out into one large studio space. The rooms have a sprung floor, stage lighting and curtains which can be used to transform them from teaching spaces to a performance space for students to use. Students also have access to the school’s purpose-built theatre which is used for both extra-curricular and GCSE performances.

Curriculum Overview:

 

The Drama curriculum at The Wilnecote School is comprised of a three-year KS3 curriculum and two-year KS4 curriculum.

At KS3 students are introduced to the eight performance skills (taught as vocal and physical skills). These key skills are embedded throughout the curriculum and are a crucial part of every scheme of work. Teamwork and creativity are also at the heart of curriculum with an emphasis on how to work co-operatively with others in order to succeed.

Throughout KS3 students devise their own performances based on a wide variety of stimuli. The stimuli changes with every performance and reflects issues and topics which affect students’ lives. In addition to teaching the eight performance skills the devising schemes of work develop students creativity and knowledge of drama elements such as genre, style, structure, characters, forms and language.

At KS3 students also complete scripted schemes of work where they work together in groups to create a performance of a published play. Once again, the eight performance skills are crucial to these schemes of work. However, there is more emphasis on creating realistic characters and understanding the text so that students know how to apply their performance skills in order to effectively communicate their characters story and emotions to an audience.

At KS4 students build on the skills and experience they develop throughout KS3 but have more opportunities to experiment with different genres and styles of performance. They also explore the work of professional theatre companies such as Highly Sprung and are even offered the opportunity to work with the company.

Students also have a theory lesson once per fortnight during which they explore the play DNA by Dennis Kelly. The play is looked at from the point of view of performers, designers and directors with students developing their understanding of what these roles entail and how they work together. Additionally, students develop their own ideas for a production of the play and learn about the context in which it was originally written and first performed.

Finally, KS4 students are given the opportunity to see a live theatre performance by a professional theatre company. Not only is this an exciting experience for students but it also provides them with a performance to write about in their final exam.