It’s a question secondary school teachers have been asking us, and we have been asking ourselves since the world turned upside down under the pandemic.
Graeae has always led in the proud spirit of being a learning company and our newest education project is no exception. We have created a diverse and disabled-led education team of teachers, students and theatre practitioners as we begin to reimagine an accessible, remote Key Stage 4 Drama education. This forms part of our mission to protect the creative futures and rights of young Deaf and disabled people and support students and teachers through the Recovery Curriculum and pandemic.
We are responding to both the creative ambitions and timely concerns of our students and teachers, developing new ways to embrace Drama in the virtual classroom. Students will rewrite the rules of what Drama can be and develop performance monologues, linked to identity and lived experiences underpinned by Black Lives Matter, the Social Model of Disability and the controversial ‘SEN’.
With wellbeing, creativity, power, and curiosity at the core of this project’s purpose, we will embark on weekly, online drama sessions from November with students and teachers at Highshore School in London. A practical Drama education toolkit will be developed from this which will be available to schools and education networks from early 2021.
If you have any questions or want to know more, please contact our Training and Learning Coordinator, Mette at Mette@graeae.org.