So it’s been a couple of months since I last posted anything! It’s been all a go go here at Knox! So here is what has been keeping me busy and some educational thoughts on a couple of things.

Timetable

So my timetable has been pretty hectic and on minimum time isn’t easy but having great classes always helps. The new S1 have settled in really well and i’m really seeing this years S2 classes creating some amazing work. I find jumping from different mind set levels always interest and a monday is always interesting going from basic drama, to standard grade, to S2, to Higher, to acting technique!

Health and Safety

We’ve been having some interesting discussions lately about Health and Safety in Drama and had an excellent chat with Judith Wood (Health and Safety Officer for East Lothian). As our course at Knox is so practical we are always aware of how dangerous it could be if we don’t follow guidelines. So we’ve been working on getting a manual together for Health and Safety in Drama. Doing units like Stage Combat and Dance/Drama it can be quite easy to injure yourself, i’ve done it myself!

One thing that arose from our discussion and is an interesting debate is where do we stand in a PPP school? According to FES all our furniture should be bought new (what if we were doing a period play? Where do I get my set from?), The lighting is owned by the PPP so in theory we aren’t allowed to focus them (how does this work for a pupil doing Lighting for their SQA exam?).

The manual will hopefully be ready soon.

School Productions

So the Junior Production of TROJANS is underway and looking great! we have over 50 pupils from S1 - S3 involved onstage and about 10 involved backstage! It’s going to be good!

Sadly we didn’t get our uptake of boys to do THE CRUCIBLE so we are now working on a small studio piece that could be a bit controversial but will spark debate (we like a bit of controversry!), more about this later.

‘Across the Pond Theatre Company’

As some of you may have read, Knox Academy recieved the International Schools Award for a second year, well done! Part of this was due to the work we have been doing with our link school in America. Carol, our American teacher, has came up with a fantastic idea of a collusion project based on Martin Lurther King ‘I have a dream speech’. This will involve pupils from both schools creating work based around this text.

Expressive Arts Faculty Night

Knox had it’s first Expressive Arts faculty evening last week and it was a great success, well done everyone involved. Pupils showcased work in an informal setting. Work from P.E., Drama, Music and Art showed what talent we have here at Knox. Several Higher pupils showed a piece of work about teenagers and gangs. Using the ‘Home Office’ manual as a starting point it told the story of why young people get involved in gang crime. The second piece was from our S2 actors who created a very camp and over the top murder mystery called ‘The Butler Did it!’. Both were excellent. Well done.

Holocaust Memorial Day

This years theme is ‘Stand Up To Hatred’ and after last years success of our Holocaust Memorial week we have decided to continue what we had already started but this time we are wanting to involve the wider community in our work, with the ownership pf the project very much on the pupils. Teachers from various departments have met and the ball is now a rolling! Watch this space.

Goodbyes!

On the note of the Holocaust I would like to say a huge thank you and good bye Elaine who left Knox at summer to start a new life elsewhere. She was a great help during our planning for Holocaust Week and a great support to me when I first started.

I would also like to wish another collegue, A Wood, all the best as he leaves Knox to start a new post in the West. He has been great support and a great team mate during our Holocaust work and I hope he continues the hard work in his new school.

Higher Drama Performance

The Higher Drama pupils have been busy being dramaturgs, writers, directors and actors as they get ready to showcase their hard work for their first unit in the course. Unit One asks them to research, write and direct a play about an issue or topic they feel strongly about! Let’s just say it won’t be the most happy night but should be excellent to see their hard work on stage!

Standard Grade - Mary Poppins

Last night we went to see Mary Poppins at the Edinburgh Playhouse! We took both SG classes and what a treat! An amazing piece of theatre! Our pupils were awe struck at what they seen on stage! Stunning!

On that note I need to ’spit spot’ and have to dash just now but I want to discuss a Curriculum for Excellence - so when I am less busy i’ll be back!

JC x

P.s. How gutted am I that Legally Blonde has been cancelled on Broadway… NNNNNOOOOO!!!!!!

So I have now, successfully, finished my first year at the fantastic Knox Academy and all I can say is roll on next year. Looking back over the past year I can honestly say it has a pleasure to work such committed teachers and amazing pupils.

Highlights this year include:

• Setting up my studio with my posters and visual aids and meeting my classes
• the S6 Pantomime ‘Cinderella’. A great rehearsal period and production that went down well with everyone who seen it. Great songs, dances, acting and great audiences.
• The senior play ‘In Holland Stands a House’. The pupils really took on board the challenges of staging a small intimate studio performance. This play also was the FIRST production at Knox Academy and we made the audience cry!
• Holocaust Memorial Day - An emotional experence enabling every pupil in Knox look at the themes of the Holocaust through the eyes of young people. It was great to see all our hard work pay off during our assemblies and the wall of silence that hit you after the string group stopped playing.
• Working with students from Queen Margaret University and enabling our young people to create an Award Winning piece of Drama.
• Creating the ‘Across the Pond Theatre Project’ with Carol in America which aims to enable our pupils to engage in various arts form from other countries.
• Seeing the department grow from just teaching S1 and S2 and S6 to having Two Standard Grade Drama classes and a Higher Class as well as two senior Acting Classes and the S1 and S2.
• Having two students accepted in Scottish Youth Theatre Summer School
• Fantastic trip to London with S2/S3 pupils.
• Seeing two students leave Knox Academy and pursue a career in Drama at Drama School.
• Attending my first Knox Academy Prom Night.

What am I looking forward to in session 2008/2009

• Higher Drama Investigative Drama performances in Oct.
• Senior Play (More News Later)
• Junior Play (More News Later)
• The First Knox Academy Musical (more News Later)
• New York, New York! CAN NOT WAIT!
• working with my two Standard Grade Classes on exciting projects.
• Creating more work with ‘Across the Pond’
• Possible exciting trip for Activities Week to the birth place of Theatre.

The Future is Bright… The Future is DRAMA!

I would like to take this time to say a few thank yous and goodbyes;

Thank to Mrs Craig who has fully supported me in everything I do and who’s door has always been open. Mrs Black for being my Faculty Head and dealing with any issues as soon as she could. To my wonderful pupils who with you I wouldn’t want to be in this job, you inspire the Drama we create and your ability to take everything I throw at you is amazing. Loving your work. To the S6 students of 2007/2008 - you were fantastic to work with. To all the staff at Knox who have helped pupils engage in Drama or who have supported the department. To you my readers (do I have any??? lol) a blog without readers is like an play without an audience.

Goodbyes! (CRY)

To Claire; thank you so much for all your help with the Pantomime and all your ideas for dance. You’ve been great to work with. To Andy, Fiona, Gill and Katie; You are great and will be a loss to Knox! All the best!

So that’s it! We’re off now for seven weeks - meeting the Queen on Friday with pupils and that’s my final duty of this session. Again thank you everyone and I will see you all in Session 2008/2009 - which to be honest… looks like another great year at Knox Academy!

I just wanted to write a wee something about our first production by Knox Academy Drama Department.

It was always going to be a challenge to do a full scale production with a group of S6 students who had never done drama before and rehearse it in only two months, one hour a week. The technical rehearsal was awful and so I thought we, and I say we as drama is a team subject, had bitten off more than we could chew.

To find a play that will a) not only engage the actors but also the audience and b) suit the talents of the cast isn’t always an easy option.

Come opening night we were all nervous and with an audience of around 30, students, teachers, parents and friends the lights went to black and the show began. Having decided to stage it on the thrust (audience on three sides), to make it seemed confined and like the house they were living in, the actors and audience were very close together and the company really had to focus to get through the night. As soon as the last scene finished I became teraful, they done it and they were amazing. The second night seen us perform to a full house with us having to turn a few away and through word of mouth we performed to a varied audience including SMT.

The Holocaust is very personal to me and I am honestly honoured to have worked with these talented and amazing students on such a powerful piece, to make members of an audience cry, to make them discuss, to make them feel moved by what they have seen is a great thing for any actor to be part of, let alone a student company. That is what theatre is about!

As Tess said, we’ve set a standard now and I really hope we can live up to it.

A huge thank you to everyone involved, I am so thankful to work in such a supportive faculty in such a fantastic school. Rock on next terms S6 production.

…In Holland Stands A House.

In Holland Stands A House

by Sue Saunders and Directed by J Naples-Campbell

Wed 5th Dec & Thurs 6th Dec 2007

7.30pm

Drama Studio, Knox Academy

£2

 The senior acting class at Knox Academy having been busy learning their lines and putting their finishing touches to their play ‘In Holland Stands A House’. Two students who went to Poland to visit a concentration camp will be holding an exhibition before and during the interval of the play about The Holocaust and genocide since.

This is the story of Anne Frank who with her family went into hiding during the Nazi occupation in Holland. The play interweaves a dramatised account of events in Europe with domestic scenes from the secret annex. The script draws strongly on Anne’s diary.This is the story of Anne Frank who with her family went into hiding during the Nazi occupation in Holland. The play interweaves a dramatised account of events in Europe with domestic scenes from the secret annex. The script draws strongly on Anne’s diary.

This is one of the events leading up to National Holocaust Memorial Day that the school will be hosting.

If you are interested in attending please email me at school or leave a comment, limted seats due to space.

Well today was wet and cold BUT it was burning hot in the drama studio with inspiration!

  Today I spoke to the S6 Drama students about our connections with America, they were very excited. Having sent several emails back and forth to the USA we have decided our first International Theatre Project.

Each school will help write a piece of international theatre looking at living in the western world during the war on terror. Each school will be responsible telling their side of the story in the eyes of their country.

The plays written by each school will then be interweaved together to create a piece of political theatre that jumps between Scotland andAmerica, telling the story from both sides of the Atlantic. The play will then go into rehearsal with each school producing the piece.

Our aim is to stage the play written by and acted by the students on the same day in the two different countries. Therefore creating a true piece of INTERNATIONAL theatre!

Am I the only one excited? I think not! Carol in America says ‘I LOVE THIS!!!’ whoop! Rock on!

I was inspired by a talk that our Deputy Head gave on International Education. The talk made me question the course we have in S6 and how we could use our time in creating a course that isn’t only fun, engaging but looking at the world in which we live in, after all Drama is a key subject in examining our culture, surroundings and world.

After several draft plans and discussions with my PT Faculty and SMT I have now created an International Theatre Course in which students will learn the different dramatic theories practiced across the world.

In my final year at Queen Margaret I had the pleasure of being taught Non-Western Theatre by a fantastic tutor called Dr Ksenija Horvat, for this unit I gained a 79% (one of my highest grades) however I have never been interested in the genre and completely forgot about it till the Whole School day meeting.

The course will cover African Storytelling, Japanese Noh Theatre, Chinese use of music and Opera, European Absurdist Theatre, Australian Aborigine movement, American Drama and British ‘In Yer Face’ theatre. Students will be able to explore each country through a practical and academic way before choosing three theories to devise a piece of international theatre that will be shown to a public audience.

A new development since I started this blog is that a fellow Drama teacher from the Georgia in America has been reading my blog and we have now created a partnership in helping one another to develop our international practices and working together on an International level. She was very keen in learning more about our play ‘In Holland Stands a House’ and I have now sent her a copy of the play which she hopes to stage, we aim to stage an American play next year.

So the Knox Academy Drama Department is certainly becoming fabulously International!