I had an interesting chat with a fellow teacher the other who stated they thought that their subject (RMPS) was a curriculum for excllence, then I spoke to another teacher who felt their subject (English)  was also a curriculum for excellence. Then I went into Moray House to guest speak to the Drama students on the PGDE course about life since leaving Edinburgh Uni to find written in huge letters DRAMA IS A CURRICULUM FOR EXCELLENCE! mmm…. so when i say they feel their subject is a CfE what I mean is that they feel they already teach the 4 main components of the the new way to approach education in Scotland (successful learners, confident individuals, responsible citizens and effective contributors)

It’s been interesting to read the way many teachers across Scotland are still unclear what this new curriculum will mean to them and the pupils they teach. The CfE will effect the new S1 pupils entering secondary school in session 2009/2010.

I have to agree that I do feel CfE is what we’ve been teaching in Drama since the subject was recognised in the 1960s. It is also interesting to note that not all schools across Scotland have Drama Departments and in most schools we are small departments (there are some schools who have big Drama Departments of 4 or more teachers - I know… hard to believe but it’s true!).

Drama enables the pupil to fulfil the four main outcomes of CfE and helps the pupil in skills for life long learning. All pupils must look at issues that affect them and the world in which they live in. They must use skills that will help them to a day to day basis as well as in the future, skills such as self-control, team work, confidence etc.  Most teachers will have to use various Drama techniques to meet the requirements of the outcomes; skills such as role play/team work/communication/perspective etc 

From this point of view my question is why is Drama still not fully recognised as a ‘proper’ subject. As a teacher, and I am sure I am not the only one there, I am constantly having to defend my subject on why it is not a ‘mikey mouse’ subject and why it is important all pupils should have Drama in their curriculum. I am luck at Knox that I have a supportive Head Teacher and my uptake from Drama is excellent however I still get bemused when teachers ask me ’so what do you actually do in Drama?’ do I ask that for those in Georgraphy, Chemistry, Maths, Business Management etc.

I do believe that a Curriculum for Excellence IS Drama and I would hope that councils throughout Scotland would try and secure departments, where they can, in schools to make sure that the young people of Scotland experience the most from their education.

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 session 2008/2009 has begun and it’s all go already! I feel like i’ve been back months!

Knox Academy are offering Higher Drama for the first time and our cohort of pupils doing the course are brilliant with some really exciting script writing ideas taking place now for their Investigative unit. The Standard Grade students are underway looking at characterisation and S2 are already using all they have learnt from first year to produce some excellent work. So we are already well underway for an exciting way.

Some exciting things to look forward to in this session

Junior Drama Production - TROJANS

The House of Troy have abused their position for too long. They deny the Youths their rights, have destroyed society and squander the country’s wealth on a stalemate war with Sparta. Enough is enough! While the Royal family plan a big party, the Council of War plan one final assault on the enemy and as Princess Cassandra tries to appeal for peace the Youths are preparing to fight back. Will the House of Troy fall? Will the rebellious Cassandra jump? Will Helena be returned to Sparta? All will be revealed in this powerful drama that takes the legends of the Trojan Wars and throws them into the madness of the 21st Century.

Senior Production - The Crucible

Well today seen HRH Queen Elizabeth II open the new Queen Margaret University Campus in Musselburgh.

Knox Academy were honoured to be invited to the opening and we took six members of our student council to the State visit. Representing Knox were our Head Boy, Head Girl, Deputy Head Boy, A representive from 4th year, 3rd year and 2nd year and were accompanied by Ms Duff (PT Citizenship) and myself. I think I am correct in saying we were the only school representing East Lothian. The pupils were brilliant and really looked great in their Dress code and made their first public outing as the new student council at Knox. I’m sure the Queen was happy!

In previous posts I have spoken of the great work the final year students of the Drama and Theatre Arts course have done with the Drama pupils at Knox in the Mussel-In project. Today seen their efforts recongised as they performed right in front of HRH Queen Elizabeth (she was sitting in the front row and one wrong kick from dancing chip man in the play could have caused damaged!)

It’s not everyday you get to perform for Royalty and the pupils from Knox Academy shone in their role and the Queen seemed to enjoy it giving them a round of applause after their production.

I would like to thank once again the Students from QM who have worked so hard with our pupils, thank you. I would also like to thank every Knox pupil who represented their school today on stage or off. We may not all be Royalists but at least this is a memory we won’t forget.

(on a different note… very sad to be back as an ex graduate knowing that the school of Drama is no more but also interesting to see that most visual displays were all from the School of Drama! mmm interesting!)

On the 27th January 1945 the Red Army marched into the Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz and liberated the prisoners from their opressors.

Seven years ago National Holocaust Memorial Day (HMD) was created to commemorate, to educate and to prompt action in the UK. HMD commemorates the lives of those lost in the Holocaust; as a result of Nazi persecution and in more recent genocides. It educates about the Holocaust and it lessons for the present day. It prompts action in the UK highlighting the continuing dangers of racism, anti-semitism and all forms of discrimination.

As a teacher and theatre pracitioner I feel that it is so important to educate young people about the Holocaust and Genocide since World War Two. We are now getting to a stage in history where first hand stories are being lost and it is up to children and grand children of survivors to pass on information.

Throughout the Drama Curruiculum  at Knox Academy students experience various insights into the Holocaust… S1 look at the Holocaust through Dance/Drama, S2 look at the topic through the eyes of Refugees and writing monologues to perform and the S6 have just completed In Holland Stands a House about Anne Frank, as well as looking at scenes from Fear and Misery of the Third Reich. I have just written the Standard Grade course for next year and the students will have to create a piece of Docu-Drama based on Genocide. All these topics look at the aims of HMD and hopefully will engage students.

I think it should be council wide that all schools should be doing something active for HMD; an assembly, cross curricular work, research, presentations etc anything that will enable the students to look at the topic and engage them.

We are living in a world where sadly Genocide happens and yet young people are quite niave about the topic due to lack of education, please don’t think that is only a teachers job, I feel parents and the governement should also be doing all they can to make young people understand that being different for whatever reason is actually fine. The tragedies of Cambodia, Bosnia, Rwanda and Darfur have shown that the international community, and each of us as citizens, have not truly understood the lessons of the Holocaust.

Every year, a different theme is announced for HMD. In 2008, the theme is Imagine…remember reflect react.

Knox Academy has already started their work towards the day, ending with a memorial by the senior students for those who have died throughout the world. It is my aim that Knox Academy makes this a day in their calendar, enabling students to look at the day each year from a different point of view.

Imagine… what it is like

remember… the past

reflect… on the memories

react… so it won’t happen again

What will you be doing on the 27th?

S6 Pantomime: Cinderella

I can not believe that I have now completed my first full term at Knox Academy, and do you know what? I’m loving every minute of it! There is such a creative buzz around this school!

In August I was asked to direct the S6 pantomime and 4 months later the s6 students had staged an hour long production with passion and gusto. This may seem the norm to many reading it but you have to remember that most of the cast had just staged a two act emotional drama about the Holocaust and then 80% of the cast were involved in the Christmas Concert last week too so to still have the energy to stage the production three times in one day is amazing.

It was a very hard to write a panto for a school I had just started in but the audience seemed to laugh along with all the jokes. The students worked so hard on getting everything right, the set and costumes, dance moves, songs….. everything!

The story tells of poor Cinderella who works in the family chip shop in Haddington, dreaming of one day meeting her Prince and being a singer. When PC (Prince Charming) holds a prince idol contest to find entertainment for his Ball he auditions people throughout the land, however the wicked step-mother doesn’t let her go! Her fairy grants her wish and she finally meets her prince but does it all work out?

With a gangsta Prince, a Riverdancing Buttons, 2 of the ugliest sisters you have ever seen and special appearances from the Wicked Witch of the West and Sleeping Beauty this is a panto for the whole family!

All the students at Knox loved it on Friday and Mrs Craig even had to stop people trying to sneak in for a second time! lol!

Because it was so successful we are staging it for family, friends and the local community on Wed 9th Jan, 2008, in the Hall at 6.30pm. Tickets are £3 and can be bought on the door. Come along and bring your family.

I would like to take this time in thanking all the staff and students involved. I have never known a school to be so actively creative in the run up to Christmas (Senior play, Amazing concert, pantomime). Thank you to Mrs Sommervile for some excellent choreography and Miss Folconer for her role as Stage Manager. To all the S6… you have been a pleasure to work with and I am only sad that I started working with you this year. Break a leg in Jan!

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.

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!

I love all forms of movement, as I mentioned in previous posts, and try to incorporate movement as early as possible into the drama curriculum so students experiences of it are fun, challenging and enjoyable.

When I mentioned this week to the second years that they are starting dance/drama their faces dropped and the boys were shouting… nnnnooooooooo!!!!!! This is the normal response!

Having taught it for the past 3 years it doesn’t come as a surprise, however by the end of the first lesson EVERYONE was fully engaged and had created a wonderful piece of dance/drama as a class.

I don’t teach it as ‘dance’; we don’t do tap, ballet or Jazz and we don’t need to! I explain that dance/drama is a form of communication that the meaning is created through our bodies and movement, unlike in Drama where it is mainly verbal.

We watched a clip from the National Theatre of Scotland’s award winning play ‘Black Watch‘ which showed a movement sequence that communicated the anger the young soldiers were feeling. This really represented what we were trying to achieve. We use gymnastics, balance, movement, gesture to create our meaning, the faces were beginning to change!

Last year I had an incredible group of boys who created a dance/drama piece about football violence which included a slow motion football match and lifting people as well as the class who used dance/drama to tell the story of 9/11 and the attacks on London.

In today’s 2nd year class the boys again outshone the girls by being daring in what they created. THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX! The theme was city life to Speedway by the Prodigy. I had boys lifting one another, someone jumping over shoulders and going into a forward roll. The linking of the piece by movement really showed everyone how interesting this form of drama can be. The last words from the class… ‘are we doing this next week as we really want to!’

A message to Drama teachers… don’t be scared to try something outside your box!

It’s always interesting to see how staff perceive a subject in a school, many think drama is a mikey mouse subject, which I’ve touched upon in other posts. Here’s where I stand about the whole issue… Peter Brook said…

I can take any empty space and call it a bare stage. A man walks across this empty space whilst someone else is watching him, and this is all that is needed for an act of theatre to be engaged.  

  So imagine that the empty space is our classroom, someone else watching him is our student and bingo theatre has been created. We spontaneously improvise every lesson; we entertain to keep the students interested. A teacher is an actor, and one of the best around!  Bit of a pointless post but felt the need to share my view on how drama connects with everyone