Drama

As for everyone, this has been another challenging year for the Drama department at KPS and we have had to think outside the box to make the most of the Drama curriculum in a socially distanced society. But, as ever, Drama has brought creativity, team work, adaptability and a lot of fun to the school lives of the children at KPS.

In the Autumn Term we normally run our ‘Poetry Out Loud’ competition and we were not to be deterred, despite the unusual circumstances. Every child in the Prep school is asked to learn a poem by heart and recite it to the rest of the class. Two representatives are then selected from each class to perform in an evening of Poetry to parents and staff. As this wasn’t able to take place, we decided to be a bit creative. The children, selected by their classes, were given the opportunity to create a video of their poem. They could use costumes, props, video editing tool to be as creative as they could, wherever their imagination took them. The results really were remarkable.

Each Year 6 class took on the huge challenge of performing a half hour version of a Shakespeare play. This year we chose Hamlet, A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Romeo and Juliet. They had to use the original Shakespearean text; not an easy task for children of their age, but they rose to the challenge and exceeded all my expectations!

In the Spring Term the third lockdown impacted on KPS’s Drama curriculum and, once again, we all had to put our heads together and be creative. Many of the children took part in a range of Drama activities we set for them on our Remote Learning platform, Firefly. We received some creative sock puppet videos about precautions to take during the COVID pandemic; children designed props and made fake snow; they used a variety of techniques to improve their mime and some of the Year 6s worked on improving their interview skills.

The Summer Term is always an exciting one for Drama and Performance. This year the Year 3s, 4s and 5s performed various scenes and musical numbers in an informal concert to the rest of the year group. The highlight of the year was the Year 6’s final performance in the musical ‘Beauty and the Beast.’ They worked incredibly hard throughout rehearsals and their team work shone through in every aspect of their performance. We had a brilliant costume and props team, led by Mr Griffiths, with many of the household objects and props being made from scratch. We have so many talented performers in Year 6, who I have no doubt we will see great things from in the future. The highlight of the year was... the musical ‘Beauty and the Beast.’ ...their team work shone through in every aspect of their performance.