This resource provides guidance on the knowledge, skills and experiences that primary schools can use to develop their drama provision in response to the Curriculum for Wales guidance. It is a mandatory requirement for schools to develop an understanding of “progress in a given Area or discipline and how learners should deepen and broaden their knowledge and understanding, skills and capacities, and attributes and dispositions” (Welsh Government, 2022).
Focusing on each Statement of What Matters in the Expressive Arts Area of Learning and Experience (AoLE), and using the descriptions of learning for guidance, this curriculum design resource outlines detailed knowledge, skills and experiences required to support progress in the discipline of drama; develop learners’ cultural capital, creativity and key communication skills; and identifies strategies for using drama as a powerful, engaging teaching tool across the curriculum.
The knowledge and skills are separated into progression steps and schools need to decide how to split these between year groups. It is important, however, to revisit and reinforce knowledge and skills regularly.
The Author: Simon White
Simon has had a vast experience of working in education, the creative industries and as an expressive arts practitioner. He spent three years at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art before working as an actor, including work with the Oxford Playhouse and the Royal Shakespeare Company.
Simon taught drama for two years at a comprehensive school in Hounslow, Greater London before moving to South Wales sixteen years ago and starting the company Bigfoot Arts Education (South Wales).
As a film and drama practitioner, Simon has led workshops in schools and community settings across the UK; he has devised and written plays and short films for young people and created education projects that use the expressive arts as a teaching tool to engage young people and develop skills across the curriculum.
Since 2016, Simon has been a full-time teacher at Rhiw Syr Dafydd Primary School in Caerphilly. For the last two years, he has been curriculum lead at the school, with responsibility for implementing the Curriculum for Wales.