Drama
KS3 Drama Mission Statement
“Art is not a mirror held up to reality but a hammer with which to shape it.” – Bertolt Brecht
At Burnley High School drama’s vision is for all students, regardless of background or circumstance, to be inspired to be makers and appreciators of theatre and its culture. Learners will be empowered to have a voice in the world today, to recognise what it takes to succeed creatively and to acquire the knowledge and qualities that allow them to be a confident and eloquent member of society.
The Power of Drama
Burnley High School’s Drama curriculum is about more than just being able to perform on stage. Opportunities are embedded for students to develop and refine performance talent but equally important is the ability to understand the purpose of the theatre we create and observe and to be able to evaluate the work of others and understand a director’s intention.
Students are taught, through different methodologies of theatrical practitioners, to no just ‘re-enact’ work but to shape and express their own unique, creative ideas with a greater understanding of the need for style, audience intention and appreciation of a broad range of cultural perspectives.
The Drama curriculum embeds opportunities of communication and oracy, creative imagination, emotional literacy, clarity of expression, autonomy, leadership, confidence and collaboration. These opportunities are used to create and develop a well rounded learner who can use exposure to real life opportunities not only within school life but beyond in future employment.
The curriculum composites introduce learners to new key conventions and knowledge through different cultural topics, practitioner influences and texts as well as embedded retrieval opportunities throughout the years ensuring learners build on complexity and depth of knowledge, enabling progression in skill, knowledge and appreciation.
Drama Road Maps:
Please note, every subject exercise book your child has contains a subject ‘Burnley High Road Map’ that outlines the content covered, timelines and assessment points for the current year.
Our Year 9s starting some set design work, moving from the planning stage to production:
Music
The study of Music offers a vehicle for personal expression, stimulating creativity and imagination through the interrelated skills of performance and composition, making an important contribution to a student’s creative and emotional growth. It also develops aural literacy and listening skills, essential to all learning. It aims to evoke powerful emotional responses and solicit expressive and creative outcomes.
Music aims to develop feelings and understandings that may not be verbal and are based on aural experiences.
Through the practical engagement in the interrelated activities of performance, composition and listening, students understand better how music is organised and the real contribution that music can make to their lives. As students develop their own musical skills they are able to broaden their musical knowledge, supporting cultural and multicultural learning.
Key Music Skills:
- Performance skills – controlling sounds through singing and playing.
- Composing skills – creating and developing musical ideas through their own compositions and through improvising.
- Appraising skills – Listening to and responding to music they have heard and communicating ideas and feelings about music.
- Listening skills – applying a knowledge and understanding of how music is created, performed and heard
Music Road Maps:
Please note, every subject exercise book your child has contains a subject ‘Burnley High Road Map’ that outlines the content covered, timelines and assessment points for the current year.
Performing Arts
KS4 Performing Arts Missions Statement
“I regard the theatre as the greatest of all art forms, the most immediate way a human being can share with another the sense of what it is to be a human being”. – Oscar Wilde
BTEC Performing Arts allows for learners to become experts in one or more areas of the world of Theatre, Production and Performance. BTEC Performing Arts at GCSE level allows for students to specialise within their chosen area of either Drama, Dance, Set Design, Make-up and Costume, Lighting and Sound or Musical Theatre.
BTEC Performing Arts allows for students to thoroughly explore their true passions, be individual, unique and their own person. Pupils explore techniques, skills and the art of working as part of a company. Using the EDEXCEL Pearson specification, pupils are able to develop, achieve and deepen all levels of learning with the Arts.
BTEC Performing Arts allows students to develop on and further enhance their evaluative skills through the study of set productions in relation to a theme, the recreation of pre-commissioned professional work within Component 2 and devising imaginative workshops performances within Component 3.
Pupils build on their learning and knowledge from KS3 and deepen their application of this within the course. BTEC Performing Arts is accessible and challenging for all levels of learners.
Learners are skilled in research, modern days community issues and supporting younger learners through practical workshops. Every student will be able to confidently and effectively work with other specialism’s and prepare for full scale productions relying on the planning and production process and developing their communication skills along the way.
All Performing Art’s students have their talents nurtured, the knowledge developed and leave ready for completing a level 3 qualification and the working world.
Performing Arts Road Maps:
