drama department
Teaching Staff
Mr R Cameron-Goodman., Principal Teacher
Education doesn’t need to be reformed, it needs to be transformed. The key is not to standardise education but to personalise it, to build achievement on discovering the individual talents of each child, in an environment in which they want to learn and where they can naturally discover their true passions.
An Introduction to Standard Grade Drama for Parents and Students
More and more schools now offer Drama to pupils from S1 to S6. Standard Grade Drama is about far more than just ‘acting’. Whilst some students go on to further theatre training, most have used the skills they acquire in this subject to pursue careers which include the media, teaching, law, medicine and industry. The days of Drama being considered a ‘soft option’ or not an academic subject are long gone. The country’s best universities and colleges are looking for students who not only have the academic qualifications required for admission, but who are well rounded, confident individuals who demonstrate excellent investigative skills, communication skills, the ability to work as part of any group; and now more than ever students must demonstrate the self-discipline and commitment to enable them to cope with self-directed study at undergraduate level. These are the skills that Drama students develop. Through Drama students begin to cultivate an understanding of the world around them. Some of the units they will study include exploring:
- Other cultures
- Politics
- Social and domestic issues
- Recent historical events
- Contemporary Scottish issues
The course offers a good balance of written and practical work. Students keep a ‘journal’ of their studies which includes evaluating their own work and that of others, set designs, scripted work, responses to ideas and stimulus material, research on the issues they explored through Drama and reviews of live performances. Sixty percent of the final award is based on ongoing assessments, with forty percent available in the final written examination. Here are some students’ comments on their experience of Standard Grade Drama:
- Standard Grade Drama helps you work with other people
- It helps you have confidence and not to be shy
- In drama I feel part of a group because we all work together
- It’s hard work but it’s really interesting
- It helps me speak in a group more freely
- You don’t just act, you learn about life
- I know how I’m getting on because we get feedback every lesson
- I feel grown up in drama because we get to make important choices
- I have learned a lot about the world
- In some subjects I don’t know why I’m studying something, but in drama it’s like we learn skills to find out more about the world, we don’t just study something, we have to use it.
Downloads
Culture and Literacy Through Drama