Careers Focus in the Music Industry
Year 9 GCSE Drama students took part in a highly successful workshop delivered by Priscilla Cameron from Gazebo Theatre Company, offering them a valuable opportunity to gain first‑hand industry insight and work directly with professional practitioners. This workshop focused on Music and the students worked collaboratively to produce a song from writing the lyrics, recording and creating the instruments and vocals, to creating choreography and a scene.
Workshop Structure and Activities
- The session opened with students listening to the visiting practitioners discuss their work, training routes, and real‑world experience within the performing arts sector.
- Vocal warm‑up — All students participated in a full vocal warm‑up, demonstrating strong engagement and willingness to take creative risks.
- Stress mind‑mapping — In small groups, students created mind‑maps exploring the theme of stress. Every student contributed at least one idea, and groups then fed back their findings to the whole cohort.
- Poetry creation — Working in pairs, students transformed their brainstormed words into two lines of poetry, which they confidently shared aloud.
- Creative specialism groups — Students then split into four artistic disciplines:
- Music Production
- Choreography
- Acting
- Lyrics and Vocals
Each group created a chorus in their chosen art form, contributing to the development of an original song and accompanying performance sequence — similar to producing a short music video.
- Final performance — Students performed their devised work, which was video‑recorded for reflection and assessment purposes.
Student Engagement and External Feedback
Students engaged exceptionally well throughout the entire workshop. They demonstrated creativity, focus, teamwork, and confidence across all tasks.
Gazebo Theatre Company provided very positive feedback, commenting on how talented, articulate, and committed our students at Coppice are. They were particularly impressed by the maturity of the discussions around stress and the quality of the creative work produced in a short time frame.
Impact on Learning
This workshop directly supported key GCSE Drama skills, including:
- Creative collaboration
- Vocal and physical performance techniques
- Responding to stimulus
- Devising processes
- Reflection and evaluation
It also contributed to wider school priorities around wellbeing, confidence‑building, and cultural capital.
