As well as being Head of Religion and Philosophy, Zak leads our digital vision. He was instrumental in developing our excellent online learning offering during lockdown, much to the relief of our parents, and is now leading the roll out of our school device programme.
This week the Year 11 drama pupils performed their devised pieces for their GCSE exam. The work was creative and varied and they have worked extremely hard!
The pupils have to create a piece of theatre from a starting point given by the exam board and use a particular theatrical style or the ideas of a theatre practitioner.
The first group used physical theatre, incorporating ideas from Gecko Theatre and Frantic Assembly in a piece called Recovery. The movement was sensitive and beautifully executed with real depth of emotion, exploring characters in therapy and each telling their story through ensemble movement.
The second piece was called Homo sapiens and this group chose the techniques of theatre practitioner Bertolt Brecht. The piece looked at the dangers of Artificial Intelligence and used Brechtian techniques designed to encourage the audience to question the issues raised.
The third piece was a monologue called Ghosts of Vienna. The character was based on the real life assassin of Franz Ferdinand, Gavrilov Princip. He told the story that is never heard, capturing the passionate motivation for what he did with skill and commitment. This piece used the ideas of Russian practitioner, Constantin Stanislavski.
It was brilliant to see the pupils performing in the QEH Theatre, live on stage.