Drama education should not just be for the elite

It has been my privilege to work in drama and theatre education for over fifty years as primary teacher, teacher-actor, university lecturer, inspector and secondary specialist – a career that is sadly no longer a possibility for today’s aspiring drama teachers. 

There have been many challenges during those five decades, inflicted by various political decision-makers. In the spirit of the art, drama teachers have found innovative and creative strategies to combat prevailing policies to ensure that children and young people have had learning experiences of the highest quality. 

My belief in the transformational power of educational drama and theatre has never wavered, thanks to such testimonies as this from Oliver, a Year 9 pupil, who endorses drama as a way of “being able to express what I am thinking, feeling and imagining in so many different ways …” 

However, the environment that artists and educators face today is not one that’s likely to make Oliver’s experience available to all, unless determined and concerted action is taken to address the problems.

Economic and political challenges

Although I focus on the school curriculum here, the role of theatre companies is also central to the argument. The entire creative arts sector, including education, theatre and Higher Education, faces economic and political challenges which impact on the curriculum, artistic philosophy and funding priorities. 

It is ironic that government policies continue to marginalise drama and theatre education at a time when:
•    The pandemic has highlighted their important contribution to the cultural, economic and social needs of today’s society.
•    Strategies for supporting children’s health and well-being are urgently required.
•    The emphasis on an assessment-driven school curriculum is so problematic, yet priorities and procedures continue to restrict engagement in the learning process.
•    Drama and theatre could make a valuable contribution to understanding the relationship between human action and environmental consequences. 

If Eton deems drama important…

In 1998, the (then) Secondary Head’s Association conducted a survey on the value of drama in schools, concluding ‘a school without drama is a school without a soul!’. Since then, provision for the arts in state schools has been systematically marginalised, as evident in the reduction in drama teacher training, the decline in examination entries and the emphasis on STEM subjects. 

The current inequality of drama and theatre provision across UK schools is alarming – no access to live theatre in many rural regions, no specialist drama teaching in many secondary schools and few primary schools having the capacity to teach drama. 

Mark Rylance asks in the programme of the revival of Jerusalem: 

“If, in modern day England, an institution like Eton deems drama important enough to have two theatres, why are we allowing the government to cut arts education from the life of the rest of our young people and hard-pressed teachers?” 

The reasons why have been the topic of many a political debate: ‘theatre is subversive’; ‘drama challenges the status quo’; ‘theatre is about thinking and thinking becomes dangerous because it is about enlightenment’. These arguments do not appear to worry Eton or Harrow.

What needs to be done?

It is time for artists, theatre practitioners, drama teachers and educationalists to work in collaboration with the explicit intention of engaging parents, politicians and policymakers in conversations concerning the potential of drama and theatre education.

The Drama & Theatre Education Alliance could make this goal achievable. We have a strategy for effective advocacy on behalf of the whole sector. In March next year we intend to provide a drama or theatre event in every constituency. This will be valuable, but a more systematic change is required to address the scale of inequality.

The following three objectives could begin the journey to greater equality of curriculum provision, resources and theatre for all children and young people.

1.    Drama as a Foundation Subject

Currently, Drama does not have the same curriculum status as Art and Music. The fact that it is not a Foundation Subject has led to pejorative descriptions such as it is a ‘useful teaching device’ or ‘teaching strategy’. While Drama has many pedagogical qualities, it is the artistic engagement that makes Drama so profoundly relevant. Inequality will not be addressed unless Drama has an equal place in the arts curriculum.   

2.    An entitlement to professional theatre

Although this will require considerable funding, if theatre is an essential part of our cultural heritage, then it should not only be available to those who can pay. The term professional theatre includes workshops, practical demonstrations, age-appropriate skills-based sessions, as well as main house productions and school-focussed touring. 

3.    A more diverse curriculum and repertoire  

There has been excellent work in respect of examination texts. Plays by writers from the Global majority have been added to the set-text options on Pearson GCSE syllabi. This needs to be extended across the whole 3-18 curriculum to include classroom process and practice. 

The capacity to imagine new possibilities

There remain contradictions, differing interpretations and even misunderstandings about the intentions and artistic forms in the sector. This is in the very nature of a changing process that responds to the changing needs of new generations. 

Perhaps, as artists and teachers, we have been too eager to align with particular ideologies and teaching methods and too reluctant to share our praxis beyond the boundaries of our particular communities. 

However, if we are to achieve the three objectives, we need to define the learning potential of drama and theatre in accessible and inclusive language that parents, politicians and policymakers can connect with. We need to articulate a coherent framework of entitlement.

The key principles of this potential framework should connect the imaginative play that engages children in the nursery with the play that Mark Rylance will rehearse and perform in the theatre. 

They are both activities that form part of a broad spectrum of the process of enactment, a process that is fundamental to human growth and to social, artistic and cultural understanding. It is also a process that that facilitates learning, exploration, playfulness and the capacity to imagine new possibilities. 

Dr Geoff Readman is Chair of National Drama.

@National_Drama | @DTEAlliance