Whether it's at a parents evening, in the staffroom or at a party, we can safely say that we've all been asked this question at some point...probably many times. As drama teachers, I'm sure we all have our response well honed by now! It was due to repeatedly being asked this question, that drama teacher Suzanne Bushell created "What's the Point?"- a series of short but engaging videos about the benefits a range of subjects, including drama. This Blog aims to take a closer look at this fantastic new resource.
How did it start?
Suzanne Bushell is a drama teacher who was repeatedly asked this question by parents and students. Usually, she says, it was followed with "I'm not going to be an actor when I'm older!" She says:
"Every single time I would come back with my usual speech about transferable skills and the benefits of building confidence in public speaking and working as part of a group. But it got tired, and how much the students took it in is debatable."
It was when she became the Careers Leader at her school that she came up with the idea for the videos. One of the statutory responsibilities for all teachers in all subjects, called Gatsby Benchmark 4, is to embed careers learning across the curriculum. Within her new Careers Leader role, Suzanne began looking at ways to tackle this without asking already overloaded teachers to add to their workload. She says:
"I wanted to create resources that helped them to embed careers learning in their subjects that didn’t take too much time out of their lessons and didn’t mean that they had to re-plan lessons or schemes of work. Being a Drama and Performing Arts teacher I started there."
You can learn more about Gatsby Benchmark 4 in the following 'What's the Point?' video:
The Videos
There are now twenty short videos linked to different Drama skills and techniques and this list is continually growing ,as Suzanne works through the curriculum. She says that her department often use the videos as starters or plenaries when introducing new skills, showing the video and then starting a short conversation asking questions such as: “Did any of that surprise you?”, “Are you interested in any of the careers mentioned in the video?” or “Can you think of any other careers that link to this lessons skill?”. Teachers also use them as homework tasks, showing the video to students and then asking them to choose one of the careers mentioned and create a careers profile to go with it. Suzanne elaborates:
"In our school the Drama department are leading by example in embedding careers into the curriculum and I have also begun working with other departments to create useful video resources for them!"
What's the Point video resources are completely FREE to access and use in your lessons and are being added to and updated continually by Suzanne as she finds effective ways to improve them. Take a look at some of the drama videos which have already been created:
To find the 'What's the Point' YouTube channel, click on the button below or type into the YouTube search bar “What’s the point? Careers” to find some of our videos.
Please do subscribe for free to the channel and please do share with colleagues in other departments who might benefit!
Thank you to Suzanne Bushell for her contributions to this Blog! You can connect with 'What's the Point?' on Twitter using @ThePointCareers.
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