INTENT

At Looe Community Academy, Drama is designed to teach all students essential theatrical and transferable skills while fostering confidence, self-esteem, creativity, and expression. Our intent is to engage students through a diverse curriculum that includes Communication Skills, focusing on voice and physical presentation. In Years 7 and 8, students engage with character emotions and theatrical techniques, while Year 9 focuses on empowering students to present their best selves for interviews and future careers. Drama is not just about training future actors but about equipping every student with skills that are valuable in various aspects of life and future professions.

Our curriculum fosters resilience by challenging students to embrace new techniques, overcome creative obstacles, and persist through performance challenges. We also instil the value of respect for diverse theatrical traditions and each other’s contributions and teach students to take responsibility for their learning and their roles in both individual and group projects. Through a range of evaluative opportunities, students reflect on their own and others' work, using feedback to drive continuous improvement and growth. By combining these elements, we ensure that students are well-equipped for future success in both the arts and a variety of other professional fields.

IMPLEMENTATION

Our Drama curriculum offers a rich and inclusive environment where students develop theatrical and transferable skills. Engagement is fostered through dynamic lessons in our well-equipped studio, where students explore diverse theatre styles and techniques, linking these experiences to subjects like History, English, PSHCE, and EPR. Empowerment comes from building confidence and self-expression, preparing students for careers in theatre and other fields such as marketing, sales, tourism, law, youth work, journalism, and event organisation.

Students are encouraged to evaluate their own and others' work through self-assessment and peer reviews, which help them reflect and improve. Extra-curricular activities like the LCAD Drama Club offer further opportunities for practice and performance. Throughout their drama education, students embody the core values of respect, resilience, and responsibility: they learn to value diverse traditions, overcome challenges, and take ownership of their roles.

Our program’s success is highlighted by alumni who have advanced to prestigious stage schools and careers with companies like SKY, ITV, BBC, and Netflix. The annual GCSE showcase and local gallery exhibitions celebrate high standards and creative achievements, preparing students for both future education and professional careers.

Year 7

Drama Overview: In Year 7, students are given an introduction to the basic drama skills in Drama through different themes and topics.
Key topics: how people may have felt during the World War 2 evacuations, Silent Movies, and Script work based on a student’s first day at school

Key skills:

• Taking part in role plays
• Creating successful still images
• Learning about a character through hot seating them
• Devising short pieces from a given idea
• Creating narration to tell a simple story
• Non-verbal communication
• Learning mime skills (including push, pull, lift and slapstick fighting)
• The importance of stage directions
• What the different parts of the stage are called

Year 8

Drama Overview: In Year 8, students build on the basic skills already learnt and begin using their knowledge to devise and develop their performances.
Key topics: looking at showing characters’ emotions through ‘Inside Out’, and Commedia dell’arte

Key skills:

• More in depth role-play and hot seating
• Creating thought tracks
• Devising from students’ own ideas
• Proxemics
• Creating physical characters

Year 9

Drama Overview: In Year 9, students work on further developing their drama skills and the way they can use them and start to look at how they can apply these skills outside of the drama classroom too.
Key topics: the Dragon’s Apprentice (based around Dragon’s Den and The Apprentice television programmes)

Key skills:

• Using devising skills and topic knowledge to create their own version
• Exploring status
• What makes a successful presentation/pitch
• How a strong product can be made weak through a poor presentation and a weak product be made strong through a strong presentation

Years 10/11

Drama Overview: In Years 10/11, students can pursue Eduqas Performing Arts Tech Award as a 1-year option.
Students work on a ‘page to stage’ performance extract for Unit 1, before devising their own piece or creating their own production designs for Unit 2. They finish the course putting all their knowledge together to plan a whole original production of their own for which they showcase an extract of acting and design to a panel of professionals in their pitch.

Key topics:

Key skills:

• Still Image, Thought Tracking, Narration, Hot Seating, Role Play, Cross Cutting, Forum Theatre, Mark the Moment
• Use of costume, Sound/Music, Lighting, Space/levels, Set/props, movement/mime/gesture, voice (how you speak), spoken language (what you say),
• Action/plot/content, climax/anti-climax, use of rhythm/pace/tempo, use of contrasts, use of props/gestures as symbols, characterisation. 

IMPACT

The impact of our Drama program is clearly demonstrated through the impressive achievements of our alumni, who have advanced to study at prestigious stage schools and work as professional actors with companies such as SKY, ITV, BBC, and Netflix. However, Drama at Looe Community Academy is not solely about preparing future actors; it’s designed to engage all students with theatrical and transferable skills that enhance their confidence, self-esteem, creativity, and self-expression. By empowering students with essential communication skills, we prepare them for diverse career paths beyond theatre, including marketing (e.g. advertising campaigns), sales (e.g. persuasive presentations), tourism (e.g., tour guiding), law (e.g. courtroom advocacy), youth work (e.g. mentoring), journalism (e.g. interview techniques), and event organisation (e.g. coordinating and hosting events).

Possible career pathways include Performer, Actor, Voiceover, Film / TV Production, Costume, Make-Up, set design, Directors, Events Managing & Hosting, Presenting and Media, TV, Radio, Internet broadcasts.