As students begin to plan their academic path, there are many subject options to consider. One subject that often sparks a lot of interest and curiosity is GCSE Drama. While some may view it as simply an enjoyable class with no real-world applications, this couldn't be further from the truth. In fact, taking GCSE Drama can provide students with invaluable skills and experiences that will benefit them not only during high school but also in their future endeavours.
In this article, we explore why GCSE Drama should be at the top of your list when choosing your subjects.
Table of Contents
Why should students take GCSE Drama?
What career opportunities can arise from taking Drama as a GCSE?
What do students learn at Drama GCSE?
What are the assessment criteria for Drama GCSE?
How to know if GCSE Drama is for you
What is GCSE Drama all about?
GCSE Drama offers an exciting journey, taking you from acting and directing to creating and designing original theatre pieces. It's a fantastic way to learn and apply both specialised and transferable skills.
Throughout the course, you'll enhance your acting abilities by working on your voice, physicality, characterisation, and improvisation. The lessons are very hands-on and involve lots of teamwork, but there's also room for solo projects.
The course is flexible, with options for actors and those interested in design elements like lighting, sound, and costume. Alongside these practical skills, you'll study and analyse set texts to see how a production team brings a play from 'page to stage.' Plus, you'll get to attend various live theatre performances, supporting your learning in both the performance and written parts of the course.
Why should students take GCSE Drama?
By choosing Drama as a GCSE, you'll of course develop acting skills. But, in addition to that, you’ll also gain transferable skills that will serve you well not just throughout your education, but your whole life.
Teamwork: Drama teaches you how to work as part of a team. You'll learn to balance ideas, collaborate, listen to others, evaluate your work, and build your organisational skills.
Speaking in front of large audiences: GCSE Drama will help you develop skills not just in public speaking, but also the finer skills like speaking clearly and confidently, and not feeling intimidated when presenting to a large group.
Introspection: Drama and theatre encourages a lot of introspection. Being a great actor requires knowing your character inside and out.
Empathy: Understanding your character's motivations and feelings requires empathy; the ability to put yourself in someone else's shoes. This is invaluable for both personal and professional relationships as you go through life.
Improvisation and quick thinking: Drama often requires improvisation, helping you think on your feet and develop initiative—skills useful in any future workplace.
Time management: You'll learn to work towards deadlines and be disciplined in managing your time and project progress.
Creativity: Drama GCSE lets your imagination run wild. There are no wrong answers, just your personal interpretation!
Critical thinking: Analysing and evaluating theatre hones your critical thinking, a skill useful across various subjects.
Another extremely useful skill which GCSE Drama provides and practices in abundance is non-verbal communication. Many studies and experiments have shown that communication is based far more on tones and facial expressions than actual words.
Rob Walker, Drama Teacher at Kings Bournemouth, argues that in fact this research alone makes the teaching of Drama (the only subject on the curriculum where non-verbal communication is the sole focus) fundamental to teaching English to international students in particular.
He comments:
"Apparently, according to statistics, 90% of communication between people occurs not through the words they say but instead, non-verbally. And by non-verbally I’m referring to all the enormously subtle variations in: tone, pitch, pace, volume, intonation, accent and well as the physical elements of facial expression, gait, posture, mannerisms and gestures.
Drama is the ONLY subject that actively explores and utilises all of these physical and vocal elements in the communication of meaning.As teachers of real communication who want our students to sound as authentic as possible, how can we ignore this?"
What career opportunities can arise from taking Drama as a GCSE?
Drama offers a variety of transferable skills that are beneficial across many career paths, even those not directly related to Drama. It helps you develop presentation and teamwork abilities while boosting your confidence and empathy.
If you're considering studying Drama further, GCSE Drama lays a solid foundation for A-level Drama, or beyond that a degree in a related subject.
For those interested in a career in Drama, there are numerous paths to explore, including acting, performing arts, directing, stage management, costume design and makeup, set construction, lighting design and sound. You could of course also train to become a Drama teacher.
What do students learn in GCSE Drama?
As a GCSE Drama student, you will learn a variety of skills including:
- Devising your own original performances
- Performing an existing script
- Live theatre evaluation
- What the role of a director entails
- Lighting and sound design
- Costume and set design
What are the assessment criteria for GCSE Drama?
Exam boards develop, mark and award GCSE qualifications, and there are currently several that offer GCSE Drama, including AQA, OCR, Pearson and WJEC Eduqas.
At Kings, the iGCSE Drama course follows the Cambridge GCSE Drama specification, which consists of two components:
Component 1
Written exam of 2 hours 30 minutes (40% of the GCSE)
Candidates answer: all questions in Section A, two questions in Section B (one compulsory question and one question from a choice of two), both questions in Section C.
Component 2
Coursework (60% of the GCSE)
Candidates submit three pieces of practical work:
- an individual performance based on an extract from a play
- a group performance based on an extract from a play
- a group performance based on an original devised piece
How to know if GCSE Drama is for you
Drama GCSE is an excellent choice if you:
- love performing
- want to boost your confidence
- enjoy collaborating with a team
- have a passion for watching performances
- are curious about other theatre roles, like directing or designing
- thrive in practical work
- are dedicated to and enthusiastic about Drama
Start your journey towards GCSE Drama!
We hope that this article has given you more information about GCSE Drama and why it is a great choice.
At Kings, our four UK colleges - in Bournemouth, Brighton, London and Oxford - offer a range of university preparation programmes.
These include GCSEs, across a range of subjects, with our Bournemouth school currently offering IGCSE Drama. You can find out more about the differences between GCSE and IGCSE here.
We also offer A-levels, as well as specialist degree pathway programmes for international students.
If you would like receive more detailed information about the Kings and our programmes, please get in touch with us at enquiries@kingseducation.com.
