Morpeth School badge

Morpeth School

Drama Department

Head of Department: Rousy Begum

Teaching spaces

New Arts building

New Arts Building

The drama department at Morpeth is housed in a new state‐of‐the‐art Performing Arts building including three Drama studios and the use of 250 seat theatre space. There are currently three members of staff. This fantastic new building offers three state-of-the-art Drama studios with advanced lighting, sound and staging facilities, and a fully operational theatre/performance space.

Key Stage 3

Pupils in Years 7, 8 & 9 receive a single Drama lesson per week. During these lessons, pupils explore a range of Drama Mediums and key Explorative Strategies through creatively structured schemes of work. Schemes and workshops are delivered by both Drama teaching personnel and visiting industry practitioners.

Drama with attitude

At Key Stage 3, pupils are assessed and graded using the National Curriculum level descriptors as highlighted in the Arts Council’s Drama in Schools publication.

Pupil-friendly versions of the assessment criteria and levels are displayed in all Drama teaching spaces. The three areas monitored and assessed at KS3 are:

Key Stage 4

We currently offer approximately 100 places per cohort at Key Stage 4. The Drama GCSE is a very popular option and our results have remained consistently high over the past few years.

Pupils on the GCSE in Drama can expect to explore advanced Explorative Strategies and specialised use of the Mediums, whilst also examining:

The exam board used by the Drama department is Edexcel.

A typical Drama lesson

Extra curricular opportunities

We are committed to developing the skills and passion of our pupils both in and away from the classroom. The department has established a yearly tradition of high-quality theatre productions; with a particular emphasis on Shakespeare and classical text.

Most recently we have taken pupils to London’s West End to perform in the Nationally acclaimed Shakespeare for Schools festival and have organised a Year 8 residential trip to Stratford upon Avon in collaboration with the Royal Shakespeare Company and London Challenge.

We also offer a Key Stage 3 Drama Club every Tuesday evening. This club is delivered by a professional theatre director and aims to provide our younger pupils with the opportunity to build stage confidence and performance skills.

Recognition of achievements

Each term, Drama teaching staff choose pupils whom we feel have worked at a consistently high level to receive a certificate of achievement. Usually, the teaching staff will nominate two boys and two girls from each class to receive these awards.

The department also periodically offer the following to pupils across the board in recognition of excellent work and effort: