Reflecting changing times: MDEE 2023

Times are changing,’ agrees Onur Orkut, teacher and academic, when I talk to him in his capacity as advisory board member for drama content in the Music & Drama Education Expo 2023. The conference has come a long way since Drama first entered the programme seven years ago, but never has there been so many new ways of thinking to incorporate into the programming.

Each year a call for papers produces ideas for workshops and seminars put forward by teachers, practitioners, writers, academics and representatives of organisations, theatre companies and charities. Much of the programme selected from these proposals with the invaluable input of an advisory board representing the delegate base: teachers of diverse kinds of students from early years and primary all the way up to higher education.

As well as providing feedback on sessions proposed through the call for papers, the advisory board helps to identify areas at the forefront of educational thinking that year. It also commissions sessions that speak to those topics, making sure that the programme meets the up-to-the-minute needs of the teachers who attend the show, providing CPD value which both enriches their own teaching practice and justifies the time they must take off from teaching to attend at all.

This year, these topics speak of change like they never have before.

New ways of thinking

This is the year in which exam boards have made their most clear, concerted effort to diversify and decolonise the set texts in the curriculum. In both the English and Drama specifications at Key Stages 4 and 5, texts representing the richness of cultural diversity among the students who study those syllabuses are now becoming available on the lists. As such, it is more vital than ever that the Expo offers sessions about further decolonising the curriculum and teaching diverse set texts.

This year, issues surrounding gender identity have become vastly more prominent, more discussed in the media, on social media and in society generally – particularly among young people. In this context, it has become more than ever important that teachers are offered CPD helping them to navigate matters regarding respectful and safe training environments, sensitivity in processes such as casting, and avoiding unconscious bias in all their interactions in the drama studio.

This year could be described (with a degree of hopefulness as we head towards the winter months) as the first truly ‘post-pandemic’ year, with educators and indeed all those involved in the arts able to take a step back and look at why and how drama is essential in a post-Covid world. But it remains evident that this view is not shared by those with the most power over our national education system, so it becomes ever more necessary to help teachers to communicate the importance of the arts in our society and our young people's education.

This is also a year in which the necessary technological advances undertaken by everyone in both the education and the theatre and performance worlds must be re-evaluated with an eye to the future. Do we throw out the digital approach to teaching and to theatre, running with joy and relief back into each others’ arms and revel in real-life, face-to-face interaction, or do we acknowledge that digitisation did level the playing field, in education and training and for audiences?

These are the matters which are playing into the programming process for the Music & Drama Education Expo 2023 – and the process is ongoing. While large parts of the programme have now been announced, there is still more to come as we commission and curate with the help of the advisory board.

In the can

We have already announced sessions on the following topics of discussion:

• Developing communication skills through performance and demonstrating to parents how such skills translate into career paths
• New models of assessment for A Level, and how these might prepare students for what comes after
• The use of applications such as OneNote and Teams in the teaching of creative subjects
• Voice health and best practice for teachers
• Teaching set design effectively on a shoestring budget
• Practical approaches to improvisation
• Embedding the arts throughout the primary curriculum and all the way up to KS5 with no national curriculum to support and guide that process
• Introducing multicultural storytelling practices including those of Africa and the Caribbean to the teaching of young people
• Exploring and releasing emotions, dealing with trauma and promoting wellbeing through drama and the arts

The 2023 conference programme will also include sessions for teachers of students with special educational needs and disabilities, as well as sessions on teaching culturally diverse set-texts. We'll also be focusing on the cutting edge of theatre-making: exploring the intersection between theatre and game technology, inclusion in the classroom, navigating education in a department of one, and even a session with a star practitioner…

All these will be announced in full in the coming weeks, so register now to receive updates. We can't wait to see you at the Business Design Centre in Islington on 23 and 24 February 2023 for the best Expo yet.

Register at mdexpo.co.uk where you can read the full programme as announced so far and check back for updates over the coming weeks.