The BTEC National Foundation/Extended Diploma in Performing Arts Practice was introduced in 2019 for Further Education delivery. This new specification offers a brilliant holistic approach to meet the challenge of the performing arts industry and can be easily structured and balanced to meet the demands of your students. The specification has five available pathways and has substantially updated content, challenging students to refine and extend their skills throughout the course.
A flexible programme of study
The Foundation Diploma is the equivalent to 1.5 A Levels, and the natural progression after successful completion is the Extended Diploma, which is equivalent to 3 A Levels. Learners are assessed on various criteria within each module, with freedom to combine various assessments. Due to this, modules are marked more holistically – unlike previous BTEC qualifications that were assessed per unit. Developed with teachers and students as well as employers and industry professionals in mind, this new qualification fully supports progression to higher education and employment within the arts.
With the freedom to choose between five pathways: general performing arts, acting, dance, musical theatre or circus, at Kingston College we currently deliver the general performing arts pathway. Students taking this qualification study four mandatory teaching and learning modules. Performing Arts Skills Development and The Performing Arts Industry are delivered in the first year of study to gain the Foundation Diploma, while Personal Performing Arts Profile and Collaborative Performing Arts Project are taught in the second year to gain the Extended Diploma. These are large modules and allow the content to be taught together or separately while also supporting various productions – perfect for us at Kingston College.
The reduced mandatory content of this specification also supports our needs at Kingston College. Indeed, because there is less overlap between units – which previously had resulted in similar skills being over assessed – we are able to coach our students to produce work of a much more professional standard and often revisit previous learning, facilitating holistic skills development and the production of high quality practical and theory work.
How the modules work
More specifically, Performing Arts Skills Development is divided into three assessment units underpinned by critical reflection and research. Students study various stylistic conventions and appropriate performance skills in response to a tailored brief in ‘Exploring Performance Styles’. Students also demonstrate their understanding and application of creative processes, technical and performance skills while studying ‘Creating Performance Material’, and during ‘Performing for an Audience’ students develop and realise a performance through rehearsal.
In the second module of study, The Performing Arts Industry, the students examine the structure of the industry and its development, exploring different aspects such as live and recorded performance, along with the roles and relationships within the industry and indeed the employment opportunities within the future of performing arts. This module lends itself perfectly to developing the knowledge of the students’ specific interests and specialisms.
Like the Foundation Diploma, the Extended Diploma contains two large modules, both split into three assessment units. The Personal Performing Arts Profile module gives students the opportunity to self-explore within the three assessment units. The first two, ‘Using Development Plans to Refine Skills’ and ‘Producing a Personal Project’ allow students to identify strengths and areas for improvement related to their progression.
As well as this, they revisit skills learnt in the previous year to devise and develop a performing arts project while working to aims and constraints. In the third unit, ‘Use of Material for Self-Promotion and Networking’, students select and create content to market themselves appropriately as a performer.
The Collaborative Performing Arts Project is split into three units. ‘Undertaking a Defined Creative or Administrative Role’ gives students the opportunity to explore and contribute to a project while undertaking different roles within the industry and demonstrating their skill set. ‘Using Creative Collaboration to Develop a Project’ and ‘Producing a Collaborative Project’ go hand in hand as students illustrate their personal responsibility and commitment when developing a project, while displaying technical and performance skills.
This specification presents the opportunity to utilise the strengths of teaching staff as well as giving them the freedom and flexibility to tailor the structure and content to their students. Each cohort is different, and it is imperative to encourage and improve their areas of development as well as challenge their strengths.
When planning the delivery of this new course we simply took the most successful parts from the units we were already teaching on the 90 credit and adapted and applied them to the new modules. This simple procedure could be applied by any centre who have previously delivered the 90-credit diploma. At Kingston College we pride ourselves on live productions at our in-house ACT Theatre and with this course we have been able to take advantage of this, structuring the delivery to offer various performance opportunities to our students – what more could you want from a performing arts course? This new specification will be a tough act to follow!