Drama for the talented pupil - differentiation exemplified

Teachers can plan different tasks by making use of the indicators identified earlier under the three headings of making, performing and responding. These tasks should be designed to meet the needs of the pupils previously identified as having a talent in some or all of the different aspects in drama. To identify these pupils, diagnostic baseline assessment activities should be carried out for all pupils as they start a stage of the drama curriculum. Assessment for learning and target setting will be based on criteria which are understood by all pupils. In some cases, an individual pupil will have targets set as part of their drama extension programme, and this may be recorded or tracked as an individual plan.

The examples below provide some guidance on how a range of activities and opportunities can be used to ensure that all pupils are challenged in ways appropriate to their particular talent, whether that be as designer, director, actor or technician. For the most talented, this will result in increasing mastery of skills, knowledge and understanding.

A classroom activity: developing skills to communicate mood and atmosphere

The class was required to plan and create the opening scene of Shakespeare's Macbeth. Only the first eight lines were to be spoken. The teacher stressed that she would be looking for how the group, using only their voices and bodies, without the aid of technical effects such as lighting and sound, created an atmosphere which would engage an audience and hint at what is to come. All the groups were of mixed ability pupils. As the pupils began to plan and rehearse the opening scene the teacher moved round asking questions and reminding the pupils of previous lessons where voice and movement had been employed to establish both character and mood. She instructed each group to make use of a director who would not have any lines but who would be responsible for co-ordinating the piece and would considering it from the perspective of a member of the audience. This task was given to the most talented pupil. This pupil's task also demanded that he or she coach the others in the group or suggest improvements. In order to ensure that the achievements of the talented pupils were recorded, the pupil had to find a way of notating their directions on the page of script provided as a prompt copy of the play.

A classroom activity; interpreting scripted texts in a range of styles

Talented actors often excel at bringing characters in scripted plays to life through the use of their voices and physical movement. In order to challenge and develop this ability further, the teacher divided the class into five groups. Each group had to create a short scene based on the story of The Pied Piper of Hamelin but in a style determined by the teacher. The first section of the lesson consisted of the teacher demonstrating with one of the groups how this might be achieved. During previous weeks, as homework, the talented pupils had been set the task of researching how acting styles have changed over the years. Each talented pupil had been allocated a particular style, for example, Classical Greek, Shakespearean, Restoration comedy; Melodrama; Brechtian and Absurd. Each group was then allocated a talented 'expert' and used the style they had researched in their performance.

A classroom activity: understanding theatre conventions - in this case, multiple staging also known as the split screen/scene

The teacher wanted to show how events in the past, present and the future as well as scenes set in different locations, can all be performed simultaneously in front of the audience through applying the theatrical convention of multiple staging or the split screen/scene. All pupils were asked to create the scenes from the play 'Killed' where a young wife is seen in the kitchen writing to her soldier husband. At the same time he is seen reading the letter he received some three months later in the trench he shares with his soldier comrades. Talented pupils were challenged further, when they were asked to apply the same convention and concepts within an original play they had to devise as a follow up activity.

A classroom activity: creating new forms of theatre and working with professional artists

A puppet theatre company, where actors and shadow puppets interact, had performed in a primary school. During the workshop that followed, the puppeteers showed pupils how the puppets were made and manipulated, and how simple shadow theatres could be made out of shoeboxes. As part of their design and technology work, all pupils made shadow box theatres, and made their own shadow puppets based on characters from the story of Rama and Sita. In groups, they devised scenes of the story using the puppets, and later performed these to another class. The most talented pupils were invited to a Saturday workshop in which they learned about other forms of shadow theatre. They used the Internet to research another story from a different culture, and created an original piece of shadow theatre using their own physical movements instead of puppets.