April has been just as busy as the other months so far this year so here is a round up:

Rehearsals for the International Festival of Playwrighting and Performance are well under way...

All four of the plays that are being performed at next month's festival have been busy rehearsing and Group 64 staged a performance of their play 'The Belinda Tree' last month at Putney Theatre Arts. Our team here went along to watch, it was so great to get a preview of the performance, we can't wait for next month now! We have the other 3 productions being staged by Rose Bruford, Hermitage Primary School and the final group were audienced and formed specifically for this festival. If you haven't booked your tickets yet don't miss out! Remember there is a special day dedicated to Secondary and Primary aged children with packages and free tickets on offer. 

GCSE and A Level reforms for Drama

I have been lucky enough to form part of the small team that have been tasked with providing the subject content to Ofqual for the the awarding bodies to rewrite the new GCSE and Alevel Drama qualifications for first teaching September 2016. The team are currently responding on Version 3 of the new drafts and the final version should be ready to submit to Ofqual by the end of June. If you have any particular content you would want to see included please email and let me know, where possible and practical I will try to include your requests. 

London Drama NOW! conference

I recently attended this conference along with another colleague from our UK Business development team and it was great to see (as usual) a community of Drama teachers sharing good practice. We had a stand in the book stall area and were overwhelmed with positive responses to our exams as well as the support and events that we offer as an awarding body. 

The keynote speech by Dr. Sally Mackey (Professor of Applied Theatre and Performance at The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama) was looking at the positives of the position Drama is currently in and how the creative industries supports the GDP and UK economy. Interestingly the Creative Industry's 'Gross Value Added' within the UK economy has continued to grow through the recession.
Also don't forget what the DCMS defines as 'creative industries': advertising, architecture, art and antiques market, computer and video games, crafts, design, designer fashion, film and video music, performing arts, publishing, software; television and radio. Even better most of these 'defined creative areas' can all be covered in some aspect or another within one of the many exams Trinity's offers. 

But finally, let's stick with the positivity and remember what UNESCO stated a few years ago:

"Culture and the arts are essential components of a comprehensive education leading to the full development of the individual. Therefore, Arts Education is a universal human right, for all learners, including those who are often excluded from education, such as immigrants, cultural minority groups, and people with disabilities"

(UNESCO, Road Map for Arts Education: Building Creative Capacities for the 21st Century, 2006)

Sunshine in Scarborough too for the National Student Drama Festival #nsdf2014

This year, for the first time Trinity travelled to run a workshop specifically for the teachers that were attending with their students. The teachers found it wonderful to sit down and catch up with all the latest Drama education changes and how Trinity's qualifications were fitting in and supporting teachers with these reforms. If any teachers would like a copy of the powerpoint please comment below with your email address and I will happily send that out to you. 

It was great to attend NSDF and see the performances that young people are producing, watching and reviewing - I was lucky enough to be able to catch the performance of 'Punk Rock' by Arts Ed sixth form students and it was a superb! I was hooked from beginning to end, it's a play I have always wanted to read but never got round to so it was great to see it brought to life by them.

Off now to prepare to Stage Manage our festival next month - so more on how all that goes next month!

Holly

Well I haven't posted for a couple of months as we have been so busy with all things Drama and Performance at HQ!

February Update

Along with Arts Programmes team, I attended the AQA Creative Conference at the Institute of Education in Central London. A great event to meet Arts teachers and discuss how Trinity can support their creative ideas and plans within schools. I took part in several group discussions and left feeling more aware of the current issues within the Drama classrooms around the UK currently!

In my January post I talked about the Globe's Education project called "Our Theatre" and at the end of February I was really lucky to work on the performance day with the Stage Management and running team, assisted one of schools with their performance of Romeo and Juliet! Standing backstage with them brought back so many memories of why projects like these are so important for schools and young people to get involved with! Well done the Globe!

Ink Pellet Magazine (The Arts Magazine for teachers) write theatre reviews for Arts teachers in each edition of their magazine and they are both printed and published on their website. In February I ventured out to the Rose theatre, Bankside (just next to the globe!) to write a review of Marlowe's Dr Faustus... you can read my review here. Within my review I have tried where possible to link to the curriculum and where the plays can help support the learning of students as well as their enjoyment of live theatre!
I'm off to theatre again this week to write my next review so watch this space!

And of course... During February we also announced our IPC (International Playwriting Competition) winners... This year it certainly is International. You can read all about those winners here.

March Update

March has been even busier! With all our examiners and assessors attending annual standardisation up and down the country that is no easy task to complete. All of our examiner panels carry out pre and post conference online tasks and then also attend a 1 day intensive standardisation day where we are able to bring them up to date on any examination and business changes for the coming year! Well done to Nargis in our academic team for co-ordinating such a mammoth task!

I have been venturing out and about once again with my memory stick, delivering presentations and seminars. The first event was National Drama's "Keeping Drama Strong" conference at Reading University. A fantastic event! You can read the storify from the day here. I gave a presentation all about the strengthen of Drama as a cross-curricular tool, we had two reports attend from Arts Award Voice and their report of the day (from the perspective of young people!) can be read here.

Whilst I was busy at Reading University the rest of the Trinity Drama and Performance team were setting up our MOVE IT and PERFORM stand at Kensington Olympia. I went to join them on the Saturday and ran a teachers seminar session in Perform. The seminar was all about how the Trinity Qualifications compliment the current National Curriculum (Secondary) and the various exam board overlaps! If you are interested in seeing this presentation please comment below with your email address and I will send this over to you.

So that's a round up for you from the last couple of months!

Next time, I won't leave it so long!

Best wishes,
Holly

Welcome back and a Happy New Year to you!

So where to begin? 

Playwrighting - Internationally

2014 is going to be a very big year! We have our International Festival of Playwriting and Performance, which is even bigger and longer than our previous years. This is happening at St James Theatre in London from May 6th to May 10th. Find out more here. 

 The plays that are due to be performed are currently being read by our judging  panel and the winner will be announced at the beginning of February. I will of  course update you too in next months blog post!

Playwrongs?

So many students and even adults find the teaching of Shakespeare 'dull and difficult.' I often wonder why? I think back to my own schooling and feel fortunate that my English teacher was passion about Macbeth and The Tempest and all it left me thinking was why did this William man have such few words to choose from? Not, 'this is so boring and I don't understand.' I soon came to realise during my own teacher training (Secondary) that encouraging my teenagers to engage with Shakespeare was a real challenge due to the preconceived ideas they had!

It wasn't until I went to the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust's launch of Shakespeare Week that I appreciated just how crucial primary Shakespeare education is. I am delighted that Trinity College London are cultural supporters of the 2014 Shakespeare Week. 

With this year being William Shakespeare's 450th Birthday here at Trinity College London we are also running several events in celebration of him as well as supporting other cultural organisations! Currently we are reviewing our Shakespeare qualifications, finalising our Shakespeare specific workshops for our International Festival, shadowing projects with The Globe (see more below...) and working to support the 1,500 schools engaging in the Shakespeare Schools Festival this year to gain certification for their work.  

Education at the Globe

The team at The Globe Education Department are facilitating several projects with schools & teachers. Myself and the Head of Drama & Performance here at Trinity have been out and about observing these projects. During this month's blog I am going to talk about this one...

'Our Theatre'

The  project is a celebration of the creativity and achievements of Southwark students and teachers  and is free to all participating schools. Each school works with a Globe Education Practitioner over fifteen weeks  across two school terms to devise and rehearse a scene selected in  consultation with their class teacher.

To celebrate the life and work of Shakespeare the schools  are  doing this though an  exploration of the ‘All the world’s a stage’ speech from ‘As You Like It’:

All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances, And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages.

The 6 schools and the Globe's youth theatre will perform on the Globe stage at the end of February. As an observer of this project I have been to two of the schools that are taking part. Before Christmas I travelled to St. Saviours & St. Olave's Girls school to watch them working on the 'Childhood' stage of man, they were exploring this through the princesses theme in Richard III. It was really nice for me to observe young people engaged in their work and not having to do a teacher or student lesson observation like the last time I observed a lesson - looking at learning in a different way is quite liberating! It was pleasing to find out that these girls had 'applied' to their teacher to take part this project and were doing so after school in their own time. Even more pleasing, some of these girls were engaging in this project out of pure enjoyment and love for Drama beyond the classroom.

Just this week I went to observe at Tuke School. This exceptional SEN school was being led by an inspiring practioner and their dedicated teacher and specialist support assistants. They were working on Henry VIII Act V. Scene IV exploring infancy as their stage of man. The work that these students were doing was quite mesmerising! They were clapping out the syllables of the lines, certainly there was no 'playwrong' in Shakespeare creation of Iambicpentameter here it was helping these students, there was no boredom or confusion within this class, they were breaking down dialogue using the very rhythmical pattern Shakespeare had created. The still images they created representing the archetypes within the story was quite magical to watch unfold. The students in this group were breaking down the so-called 'barriers' of Shakespeare's language with severe disabilities ranging from Global delay to ODD and Autism. This project just showed me that there is no 'Playwrong' in Shakespeare's playwriting - simply a lack of wanting to 'play more.' I can't wait to see these students perform again at the "Our Theatre" performance next month.

Until next month,

Holly

The last blog update for 2013...

CPD training During the Autumn term we ran two CPD days for our Level 4 Performing Diplomas. These events were really successful, one teacher said "The quality of this training for the cost was exceptional. I other training recently for £120 where they literally just read the books to us. I feel more valued as a teacher, and more supported in the field through the VLE." It is so positive to have feedback like this and we hope that any training that we run during 2014 will be just as appreciated. 

Helen O'Grady The last Drama teacher training session of 2013 happened on Sunday 8th December in Bolton for Helen O'Grady Principals and teachers. In total 9 teachers/principals (pictured right) were trained, they travelled from across, Cumbria and South Scotland and Lancashire. We are looking forward to all of these new academies delivering our qualifications from January 2014. Good luck Helen O'Grady North West!

Cut & Thrust - Stage Combat Ever wanted to teach stage combat as part of our 'Performance Arts' syllabus? Needing to put in a stage fight into your Macbeth scene?

Well fear not... Cut and Thrust is a Stage Combat company with over 10 years experience in delivering workshops for all ages. Recently Cut and Thrust have been helping Trinity teachers and students to create stage combat elements of exam performances. The Team at Cut and Thrust are all professionals with experience from all areas of theatre, television and film.
So if you are staging a performance, working towards an assessment or simply want to improve your skills then get in touch with Cut and Thrust.

'Keeping Drama Strong' Dialogue Conference Day This one day conference has been specifically created for Drama specialist teachers.
The event is happening on Friday 7th March 2014 at The University of Reading. National Drama are doing this in collaboration with The University of Reading (a leading university for PGCE Drama) and Trinity College London are supporting this event along with Artsmark, Arts Award, C&T and Salisbury Playhouse theatre. If you would like to go to this event please go to: www.nationaldrama.eventbrite.co.uk to read more and book your place. Prices vary from £25 - £90.

So as 2013 draws to a close (and also the end of my first year here at Trinity College London) all that is left to say is "Happy Christmas and Happy New Year"

Holly

Ample 'ATCL' goes forth...

Josie Campbell, Head of Drama & Theatre Studies at Ampleforth College in Yorkshire teaches the ATCL Performing diploma (Level 4) to provide additional performance opportunities for her A level students.In 2012 Lucy Bird (Speech & Drama), Giorgio Palazzo (Speech & Drama) and Oliver Moore (Performance Arts) entered for the ATCL prior to taking their A levels studies with Edexcel. Both Giorgio and Oliver achieved B grades at Drama A level which unfortunately was not high enough to secure their places at Manchester (Oliver) and Exeter (Giorgio) universities.

As their teacher, Josie approached the admissions tutors at both universities and explained that, in addition to their A-levels, they had successfully taken a Level 4 qualification. The students did not realise when applying through UCAS that they could enter their ATCL qualification as it wasn’t listed on the application form. Josie spoke with UCAS regarding the Level 4 ATCL diplomas and as a result both Exeter and Manchester University then accepted the students on to the BA course. Since speaking to Josie I contacted UCAS and discussed the content, credit level and guided learning hours of the ATCL and now students can add the ATCL under the ‘other qualifications’ section of their application form. 

This is a great example of how Trinity’s practical examinations have the potential to support students to progress into Higher Education.

Good luck with your ATCL students! 

Photo below (From left: Lucy Bird, Giorgio Palazzo & Oliver Moore)

Good 'Goffs' almighty!

The Shakespeare Schools Festival for 2013 is almost over but for Trinity College London our assessments are just beginning. 10 Schools are being assessed across the range of grades giving over 200 pupils the chance to have their work assessed. Our marketing team recently sent out a press release about Goffs School in Hertfordshire and here are some of the highlights...

"18 students from Goffs Secondary School in Cheshunt were each awarded Grade 5 Plays in Production certificates from Trinity College London for their recent Shakespeare Schools Festival (SSF) performance. The students, aged between 12 and 16 years, performed an abridged version of Macbeth on the stage of Broxbourne Civic Hall.

Sarah Cowen, Head of Performing Arts at Goffs School said: ‘Having the performance accredited meant that our students have gained so much more than just the joy of performing in front of a large audience. It was wonderful to have their talent, hard work and dedication officially recognised and rewarded. This is something that we will definitely take part in again as a school’."

Photo below from Goffs School 'Macbeth' rehearsal

That's all for this month... Don't forget to get in touch if you want to share anything with us!

Holly

This update is all about the girls... (& Shakespeare)

Girl Power

Beyond the classroom based in South London are an educational social enterprise, they use theatre and mentoring as tools to teach skills and knowledge. They work with schools and youth groups to support formal curriculum learning. Their mission is "to equip young people with the tools to make decisions/take action based on their own needs, feelings and motivations." They do this through music, dance, drama, mentoring, film and open dialogue.  On Sunday 29^th September Beyond the Classroom’s staged a public performance of Girlhood to Womanhood (G2W) as part of an SRE (sex and relationships) TIE (theatre in education) initiative. It is primarily delivered to young people in schools, colleges and youth centres  and this performance was a rare opportunity for the general public and key community stakeholders to see the play. Annoyingly I missed the production but I am looking forward to catching up with Amma from Beyond the Classroom at the end of October and hearing more about their productions, workshops and the general ethos behind their work. You can read more about the performance here.

Tomatotastic!

An all female team (Rita, Lily, Jessi and Jing) from Shanghai's 'Tomato Art' came to Trinity College London for a meeting with various members of our development team. Presentations were given from Artsmark, Arts Award, Music and by me for Drama & Performance looking at what we offer and how we can support their work in China. Tomato Art has been running in Shanghai since 2009 and has over 100 franchises throughout China, the art classes run all year round, outside of the school curriculum for 3-12 year olds. Tomato Art was set up to allow children to focus on learning through the creative arts. It was wonderful to hear that the structure they have created is similiar to the structure of Arts Award. Our Young Performance Certificate particularly interested them and I look forward to working with them on how they can make it work in their settings!

Shakespeare Schools Festival

Finally, just to make it fair... as I can't talk all about girls! Our main 'man' Shakespeare is brewing up to dominate the arts world during 2014 so to get you started with all the Shakespeare celebrations I will drip feed a little bit of what is happening each month... So first up - Shakespeare Schools Festival are now taking bookings for the 2014 festival you can read more about registering your school to take on their website. For the 2013 festival Trinity College London are in the final stages of the pilot 'Plays in Production assessment' for the November schools taking part. If you are interested in registering for SSF 2014 you will also be able to get your student's final performance certificated and professionally assessed, although booking for 2013 is now closed you can read more about the process here and get in touch if you want to learn more about the options for 2014.

That's all for now... Until next time,

Holly

So, September is over and before we know it will be October ½ term!

As teachers plan ahead for the year don’t forget that this term your students could be writing plays for our International Playwriting Competition the last day for entries is December 13^th – good luck! I have also uploaded the relevant resources for teaching playwriting on the TES as well the previous winning scripts for you to download and use. 

Don’t forget your own CPD and our ATCL training days running this October Click here for more information. For those of you that got the first ever drama teachers e-newsletter - I hope you found it useful and helpful next issue will be in January 2014. If you aren’t already registered and would like to receive these e-newsletters please subscribe by emailing us.

New National Curriculum was published on 11 September 2013. Yes, it did happen quietly and rather unnoticed! The majority of the new national curriculum will come into effect from September 2014, so schools you have a year to prepare to teach it! From September 2015, the new national curriculum for English, mathematics and science will come into force for Key Stage 2; English, mathematics and science for key stage 4 will be phased in from September 2015. Drama is mentioned (slightly!) under English. You can read the review from the Cultural Learning Alliance about Drama’s representation here. Don’t forget you can get in touch to talk about how Trinity’s qualifications can support the new national curriculum.

Trestle and Trinity exams for the next 12 months Trinity and Trestle are working in partnership on creating resources and support for teachers who are interested in exploring Mask, ½ mask and physical theatre work in line with our Performance Arts qualifications. Trestle is working with their own youth theatre students and extra-curricular Drama students at Beaumont School in St Albans, Hertfordshire. I will be following the student/teacher journey as a case study of this unique project. I will keep you updated via this blog & in the forum. If you have students that might be interested in joining the Trestle youth group get in touch with Trestle.

Until next month... 

Holly

Trinity College London’s Drama academic team are moving into the 21^st century with our VLE platform and now a blog!

This blog is written by Holly Barradell (Development Manager for Drama & Drama Teaching) and I will keep you updated on academic developments within Drama and Performance here at Trinity College London. There will also be information and links to relevant curriculum and arts & cultural reforms, events and updates from within the UK and International markets that you may want to be kept aware of. You don’t need to subscribe to be able to read this blog but you will need to sign up and sign in should you wish to post a comment.

So, as it is September many of you have just finished your summer break and will be returning to school ready for another full year! There are two ATCL training days running at Trinity College London in October so if you are planning your schemes of work at the moment and realise you might want some extra training with what you are delivering do have a look at these events. Click here for more information.

September is very exciting not only is it the launch of our VLE it is also the launch of this year’s International Playwriting Competition! More details about the competition can be found here. 

There will be an e-bulletin going out later this week to all our registered teachers, if you aren’t already registered and would like to receive these e-bulletins please subscribe by emailing us.

Finally for this month, if you are teacher who has recently received excellent results from your Trinity exam session please get in touch by commenting on this blog so that I can contact you. I want to have sections of the blogs talking about individual teachers and your centre’s good practice. 

Until next time... 

Holly