I'm a drama teacher that has been practicing for 7 years now. I teach in an outstanding school and all of my schemes follow our pedagogical framework.
I am in charge of designing my whole KS3 curriculum where you will find several of my schemes on my shop.
I'm a drama teacher that has been practicing for 7 years now. I teach in an outstanding school and all of my schemes follow our pedagogical framework.
I am in charge of designing my whole KS3 curriculum where you will find several of my schemes on my shop.
This is a combination of 2 lessons focused on the practitioner of Brecht. Lesson 1 explores 3 practical techniques: 3rd Person Narration, Direct Address and Gestus. The students then will be at home exploring this with a short section of script where they have to rehearse this to perform over zoom/ teams/ live virtual platform.
Additionally, there is another lesson filled with independent tasks to explore with a focus on devising. This includes the stimuli from WJEC Eduqas 2022 devised Component 1 criteria. The students then have to apply what they have learned, to an idea they have.
There is also an array of resources for them to explore should they wish to expand their knowledge.
This is designed to be a distanced learning/ covid isolation/ home learning lesson which allows for practical work to continue. I have lots of resources on my dashboard about social distancing/ isolation in drama. I also have a bundle of 4 lessons to introduce all 4 stimuli from the WJEC Eduqas 2022 exam board.
This is an adaptation of Frantic Assembly’s Chair Duets. Social distancing suitable in practical learning.
It is a double lesson where students create a sequence of movements (using principles of chair duets) but have adapted to suit current covid restrictions. Students face each other.
There are useful resources on there such as music and contextual references to add to the piece later on. There are also videos of strong chair duets.
Easy to follow Stage Combat scheme of work aimed for year 9 students. 9 lessons in total. Full unit of work.
Focus on Health and Safety of stage combat as well as learning particular moves and skills each lesson, building their sequence in pairs. They perform their stage combat scene at the end of the scheme as their performance assessment and then there is a theoretical test with multiple choice answers.
This is a powerpoint filled with many tasks (roughly 2 hours worth) for students to complete independently. It features challenges and ‘help pages’ with a range of different activities, from drawing storyboards to writing a trailer review, to asking questions etc.
There are also videos and script extracts for them to explore.
This full lesson teaches A level students the specific features of Expressionism with the aim to focus this on Machinal by Sophie Treadwell. However I have made this lesson so that you can adapt it to suit your text. It looks at the influences of art onto different elements of theatre such as lighting, set and performers.
This aims to cater for the Edexcel Drama and Theatre studies set text (Section B) in the written A level exam.
It can also be used as a revision resource/ independent work.
This is a double lesson (Although it may be too much content so could be another lesson) that focuses on the techniques that The Paper Birds use throughout many of their performances.
It looks at their style features and inspirations, practical tasks that can be completed with a socially distanced environment. Featuring Flocking/ Elements of a picture/ Verbatim and Representing emotions through movement.
These were all from 2 workshops that we have had ourselves, from The Paper Birds - I have taken their principles and put this into the lesson plan.
Our students always respond really well to The Paper Birds.
This can be used for A level and GCSE students (Verbatim may need to be changed for GCSE)
This is my favourite lesson to do with students! They explore the principle of Anne Bogart’s and Tina Landau’s ‘Viewpoints’ where they improvise using the principles of space, body and time. It is great as a lesson when the basics need to be revisited and new devised content needs to be made.
Some lovely moments happen by accident during this lesson and it is so rewarding.
The lesson covers the necessary detail to understand the principles and to try them out. There is also content regarding vision and having a soft focus.
It is a practical lesson that I do with students when devising - practitioners Anne Bogart and Tina Landau are responsible for this. (It’s great to join in with too - throw a good playlist on and students really get lost in the freedom)
Frantic Assembly lesson focused on Round by through. Easy to follow and is designed for devising unit.
I do Edexcel, however this can easily be adapted to suit any exam board - it is very open.
My Year 9’s absolutely loved this scheme of work. Students are assessed by producing a film trailer (of any style they wish) for a theatre text they choose. These texts can be changed to suit your cohort of students.
Each group became their own theatre company and had to have different roles that they were responsible for e.g. director/ camera operator/ treasurer/ actors etc.
We had lots of fun generating the ‘National Lottery Funding’ where they can ‘win funding’ for their theatre co. I did a lot of teacher in role where I used a microphone and a sparkly jacket to host the games. Students then spent their ‘budget’ on props and costume in an auction (again teacher in role) for their production.
After this students planned their films, conducted rehearsals and then created their films around site. They absolutely loved doing this and it created some excellent independence. From this, students then had to edit and layer their films and we then held a film premier with popcorn - they absolutely loved this scheme of work. They particularly enjoyed learning about the skills in acting for film, considering target audience, and having the independence to create something of their own. We had an award ceremony for the films and this was great for motivating students.
This scheme is planned to cover 2 terms of Year 9 lessons - Year 9s have 2 lessons of drama over a fortnight - we teach 100 minute lessons.
A powerpoint filled with 15 different drama games - full instructions for each game is included
In this powerpoint there are games that are ‘classics’ vs new games that are great to explore and play. Some have been or can be adapted easily to suit social distancing.
This is a great resource for end of year drama lessons!
Games include:
-Graveyard
-Penguin
Mafia
Night at the Museum
Evolution
Keeper of the Keys
Zip, Zap Boing
Buzzy Bee’s
Fruit Salad
Who moved first
11’s
Heads or Tails
Wink Murder
Why are you late?
Everyone can act
Scheme of 5 x 100 minute lessons (if you have 50 minute lessons, this could split across 10-12 lessons).
KS3 drama scheme of work focused on Theatrical Style and Dramatic Form including the following styles: Melodrama, Pantomime, Butoh and Clowning. The 5th lesson is an assessment preparation lesson where students pick their favourite style and perform according to an assessment brief and a title given to all styles.
All can be adapted to suit your needs.
A series of lessons studying the techniques of Devising theatre company, The Paper Birds. These 6 workshops individually explore several different techniques over a few lessons, allowing students to explore in the style thoroughly, using their techniques from a range of their different performances.
Techniques such as:
Puppetry
Invisible Forces
Flocking
Movement motifs (inspired by pictures)
Replacement emotions (with movement)
Monologue writing
And more
This quiz is designed for a double lesson or 100 minute lesson, covering all bases for the written GCSE WJEC Eduqas paper.
On the tables of the groups I would place crisps and apple juice to give more of a ‘Pub Quiz’ feel, rather than just a test.
My students loved this idea and preferred it a lot more that just a typical quiz.
This video is a ‘phorensic investigation’ of the Albert Snyder murder in 1927. (The murder that the play Machinal was based off of).
On my profile are the documents of the ‘Case Files’ featured in the video so that you are able to print them off in the necessary order that corresponds with the ‘findings’ of the video. The idea being that each student is given a case file and are expected to reveal it when it’s their turn on the video. The resources can be found here https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/machinal-murder-case-files-x-7-social-distancing-resources-12329667
Students will then ‘solve the crime’ from the video and the case files.
This has been adapted from a practical ‘phorensic investigation’ lesson to suit social distancing safety for schools. Alternatively it can be used for online/ live teaching.
The video instructs you when to pause the video to discuss/ investigate the documents.
This lesson is designed for you to set up a crime scene of the real murder case of Albert Snyder, done by Ruth Snyder and Judd Gray. This is the case that Sophie Treadwell based the story of Machinal on. Students have to investigate the crime scene and collate the evidence on the whiteboard using the presentation. This is designed to spark their interest and get them to learn through discovery. I usually do this at the end of year 12.
In addition to setting up the crime scene, there is another resource of evidence from the real case. Find it here: https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/ruth-snyder-murder-trail-case-file-12261521
An item list is on the presentation of what to include in your crime scene.
Case file to compliment lesson of murder case investigation lesson
https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/machinal-murder-case-lesson-12261507
Collated evidence of pictures and articles of the real Ruth Snyder murder trial.
Distance learning resource for drama students exploring accents for Blood brothers.
There are Youtube links and recorded audio for 2 accents (Northern and Scouse) using a monologue from the play.
It instructs students on how to record their audio and upload their work - you can adjust this to suit your school policy for work.
This distance/ home learning lesson is designed to challenge student to explore different accents of the neighbours in Curious Incident.
It includes recordings for students to listen to, Youtube videos for guidance and accent work. And full instructions of how to record and upload onto the powerpoint so that they can have a go at the accents and send it back to you.
During this time it is so lovely to hear the students’ voices.
Fully adaptable
This video and set of case file resources are a great way of introducing A level students to the case that Sophie Treadwell based Machinal off of.
The video is 11 minutes long which explores a ‘crime scene’ of the murder. However in the video it advises the teacher to pause the video. This is to allow time for students to piece together what happened and why.
This is all adapted to suit the needs of social distancing and live teaching. It can also be used in the future to help visualise what happened.
All of the resources in the case file are used from real media documentation of the case.