Designing a Key Stage 3 drama curriculum that is ambitious for all

HOLLY SULLIVAN, HEAD OF CREATIVE AND EXPRESSIVE ARTS, ALICE SMITH SCHOOL, KUALA LUMPUR, MALAYSIA Mary Myatt encourages teachers to think of Key Stage 3 as the ‘intellectual powerhouse of the secondary school’, in which ‘students are entitled to a broad and diverse curriculum until the end of it’ (quoted in Amass, 2022). Designing a creative programme of study that engages and challenges all its students can be both liberating and overwhelming for drama subject leads. As Sir Ken Robinson extolled in his report All our futures (1999, p. 6), ‘Creativity is not simply a matter of letting go. Serious creative achievement relies on knowledge, control of materials and command of ideas.’ How might a drama team design an ambitious intellectual curriculum, rooted in knowledge, control and command of ideas, that does not narrowly teach to the test of GCSE and A-level? This case study explores the rationale for one drama department’s Key Stage 3 curriculum design. At the Alice Sm