View Learning Outcomes | Learning Outcomes and Indicators

Curriculum Focus

Arts practice

Students re-enact situations and characters from literature and history and improvise ones which draw on their own observations and personal experiences.

Students use dramatic elements such as movement, voice, language and gesture to portray characters and they select dramatic forms such as mime and interviews to convey meaning through their improvisations. They discuss methods of dividing their improvisations into scenes in order to give focus to particular moments in the dramatic action. Teachers assist them to use linking devices such as song or frozen images.

Students develop skills in shaping their drama, referring to playscripts for ways of structuring their work, for example, learning how settings and characters give scenes specific focus. They work individually and in groups and the teacher assists them to make class dramas by collaborating and combining their improvisations on a common theme or topic.

Students experiment with ways in which stagecraft elements such as sound accompaniment and lighting can be used and manipulated to create different effects.

Teachers introduce strategies by which students can improve their work, for example by videotaping, and help them to structure their work to meet the needs of different audiences; for example, moving into spaces that make different demands on them as performers. Students use word processing skills where appropriate; for example, to produce information sheets about their performance.

Responding to the arts

Students are encouraged to use feedback from their peers as audience in order to improve their own work. Through discussion they learn to assess the effectiveness of their drama in conveying intended meaning.

Teachers ensure that students use correct drama terminology when making and describing their own and others’ drama works. Orally and in writing (using computers as appropriate), they evaluate their own drama and the performances of theatre practitioners.

Teachers help students to identify and discuss the use of dramatic elements such as time and space in their drama.

Students learn about ways in which dramatic forms such as mime, mask and puppetry are used in the performances of other times and cultures, such as Balinese shadow puppetry. They experiment with ways of including these forms into their own work.

Students identify the purpose of drama and theatre in the present and the past, including the provision of information, entertainment, challenge and escape into imaginary worlds.