Creativity at the heart of the curriculum
National Drama (ND) welcomes those recommendations within the Review, which are explicitly designed to make the whole curriculum more inclusive, coherent and accessible to all children and young people. The emphasis on oracy, media literacy, community involvement and climate education are clearly intended to give learners a ‘stronger voice’ and to create opportunities for enriched lifestyles, fulfilling careers and active, democratic citizenship.
Drama and Theatre education are fundamentally social and collaborative art forms. ND is committed to making curriculum drama an essential ‘catalyst’ in enabling the holistic learning principles, so well-articulated in the review, to become a reality.
The ND Mission
At the heart of National Drama’s 35-year philosophy has been the intention to ensure that all children and young people should have opportunities to learn about and through Drama and Theatre within a broad, balanced and coherent curriculum; a drama curriculum that is taught by teachers who have appropriate levels of subject knowledge and training in learner centred pedagogy. Young people are entitled to arts experiences which celebrate their cultural identity, develop appropriate levels of skill and support their engagement with contemporary societal concerns.
Drama, alongside other arts, has been at the centre of a multitude of reductionist educational and political priorities. These have resulted in the marginalisation of children’s learning experiences, particularly those that involve participation, imagination, collaboration, creativity and enactment. Although ND’s preference is for drama to be defined as a discrete curriculum arts subject, we nonetheless applaud the fact that for the first time in decades, the value of drama and theatre education and the expertise of drama teachers is being publicly acknowledged.
Consequently, ND will support our members by sharing best practice, creating opportunities for in-person and online professional development and by providing classroom resources and teaching materials to support the implementation of the new drama, oracy, media literacy and citizenship curricula.
It is surely a major responsibility of a national subject association, to ensure the legacy and future of the curriculum subject they represent and to provide support for the teachers who deliver it. ND will endeavour to establish specialist subject-specific training that enables teachers to teach meaningful drama within the new curriculum.
ND will challenge and question policy decisions that are in opposition to our stated values and philosophy. However, ND is willing to collaborate with the whole drama and theatre community in order to ensure that future governments understand the learning potential of Drama and Theatre. In other words, the national community of drama and theatre educators need to be better prepared. We need to illustrate the educational benefits of drama and theatre education, supported by authentic research evidence, before the
next curriculum review is ‘announced’.
ND advises that assessment strategies should support both learning and learner. Assessment should be integral to the process of theatre-making, not solely applied to final performance or achievement. In other words, learners and teachers need to develop a conceptual understanding of ‘assessment literacy’ throughout the process.
ND supports the proposal to review assessment and make texts more diverse at KS4 and KS5. It will create opportunities to make syllabus requirements better connected
to the theatre-making that exists in the best contemporary professional theatre practice. It will also transform course content, making it more relevant to the social, cultural and academic needs of the young people it is intended for.
The next stage of implementation is likely to be most influential on both classroom and studio practice, as the process of creating official guidance and making syllabus improvements begins. It is proposed that ND will:
National Drama’s Executive is committed to firmly embedding drama in the curriculum and raising its status across all phases of education. Drama is an essentially artistic, multi-faceted and practical subject with its own distinct concepts, knowledge, skills and forms. It should be recognised as a discrete subject. Its unique pedagogical qualities need to be celebrated as essential elements in the education of all young people, not used to undermine the subject’s identity and integrity.
Drama is a major art form. It can, indeed, be a powerful cross-curricular learning medium; but, even in that context, the learning will only be truly effective when the drama and theatre-making process is valued as art. Theatre and drama are most powerful when the constituent elements, such as fictional role, narrative, audience, context, focus, tension, movement and language, are structured by teachers to create meaning that is relevant for the participants. Drama and theatre education involve learning contexts that enable children and young people to explore their world and to devise performance that indicates their hope and vision for the future.
ND members have the support of additional specialist papers from ND’s Primary, Secondary, SEND, Post 16 and Theatre Education officers, please click on the images below to download the pdfs. You will need to be logged in to view the pdf links.
Geoff Readman
Chair National Drama