Yes

Lucy Miller studied Drama at UEA before taking her master's in Theatre: Writing, Directing and Performance at York University. After completing her PGCE at Dr Challiner's Grammer School and the University of Reading, she has been teaching drama at Stowe School since 2014. She also runs the Arts Award.

Damien Hinds is preaching to the converted when it comes to persuading drama teachers of the importance of building ‘character’. We dedicate every day to strengthening pupil resilience, independence and wellbeing through the inherently practical and self-reflective nature of our subject.

My students often comment on how drama has helped them to feel more confident and build life skills. Through collaboration they learn generosity, kindness, trust, and many of the other principles that Hinds put such emphasis on in his recent speech at the Church of England Foundation for Leadership conference.

Therefore, it should come as a welcome announcement that our new Education Secretary plans to put character education centre stage, through sport, creativity, performing, volunteering and membership and the world of work. The emphasis on these ‘Five Foundations to Build Character’ should be a breath of fresh air in an education climate where it sometimes feels like STEM subjects are squeezing the arts into insignificance.

Drama is mentioned under the third foundation, ‘Performing’, and while it is perhaps odd that we do not see any mention of drama under ‘Creativity’, this small recognition of drama and theatre's importance is surely better than no recognition at all.

However, while these proposals will be down to schools to interpret as they wish, it seems to me that the Education Secretary's speech does seem to suggest that these activities belong mainly to the extra-curricular provision. While I love working with pupils on extracurricular projects, is there a danger that drama will cease to be recognised as a valuable academic subject?

And while any mention of ‘soft skills’ is guaranteed to make Drama teachers bristle, perhaps we can afford ourselves a tiny celebration over government acknowledgement that education is about more than exams, and Drama has a vital role to play in education.

Zeena Rasheed has worked in the classroom, in pastoral and leadership roles in a range of schools, primary, secondary and post-16. Zeena recently became Vice Chair of National Drama. She studied at Bretton Hall, Central School, Homerton and achieved AST and Leadership certification.

Having survived awful decisions from leadership teams I'll say YES! to anything pro-Drama. If Hinds’ five foundations support SLT and communities to make better Drama-positive decisions, then good. I suspect several SLT teams, stuck between rocks and hard places have made Drama-limiting decisions: removing Drama, ensuring Drama has less curriculum time or more non-specialist teaching, or prioritising EBacc subjects for swish facilities.

Children should learn Drama as a specialist art and academic area of study, not because of great secondary benefits. Darren Henley's review recommendation that ‘consideration should be given to promoting Dance and Drama to subject areas in their own right,’ remains widely ignored.

So yes, while I'd rather Drama was a subject, not an annex of English, and more funding given to Children's University so paid staff can deliver accessible opportunities through an extended school day, I'd say Hinds’ vision of enriching experiences might help Drama.

I wonder where Creativity in Schools and Character Awards went, and I question the implied deficit of ‘character’ in Hinds’ analysis. In my experience, disadvantaged students have had fewer positive opportunities/experiences. The fact that they are still standing suggests huge character, grit, and resilience. Manners? Self-worth? Learning skills? Maybe not so much. It is unfettered access to school, support, a balanced curriculum, a variety of after school learning, structure in family life, sustained relationships and basic needs met that develop children's confidence, not a bolt on. Professor Becky Francis says this more eloquently than me. As does Ken Robinson.

But yes. If Hinds’ concept encourages participation in Drama at all – yes.

No

Keith Burt has been working in Drama Education for 20 years. Graduating from the Central School of Speech and Drama, he went on to get a Masters in Drama and Education at Middlesex University. An experienced and established Head of Drama and former Artistic Director of a Theatre Company, he is also the author of the website Burt's Drama.

I really want to be able to say ‘I think that this is a brilliant policy for Drama.’ Potentially this ‘Five Foundations to Build Character’ policy could be so exciting. The argument is sound. Five foundations for building confidence, character and resilience is on face value a much-needed boost to education and appears to support, among other subjects, Drama.

But lurking underneath the surface of those exciting headlines is a truth which, I think, could potentially have negative consequences for Drama in schools.

Within the policy there are distinctions drawn between the idea of character-building, along with the subjects (like Drama) linked to it, and academic qualifications. There is a suggestion that the disciplines of the subjects mentioned in the policy are different in status to the academic qualifications that students also need. What worries me most about this distinction is that it suggests the minimum amount of Drama that schools need to provide is extra-curricular activities.

This policy could give schools the authority to remove Drama from the curriculum altogether on the proviso that it is available at an extra-curricular level. On that basis, schools won't employ dedicated Drama teachers, have specific drama teaching spaces, or specialist equipment. Schools can instead buy-in external companies to run clubs (which happens in many Primary schools) or ask keen (but non-expert) teachers to run the sessions in school halls and classrooms after school has finished.

This policy may help raise the profile of Drama, but it has the potential to devalue its already diminishing place in the curriculum. Especially when cash strapped schools can, with the validation of this policy, remove Drama from the curriculum altogether and replace it with a cheaper extracurricular option.

Ali Warren is a full-time drama teacher living in Wiltshire with a long-suffering husband and a cat. She is the secondary officer for National Drama and is involved in the Prince's Trust Children and the Arts in an advisory capacity. She has written a number of short plays for young people.

I like a good Government pronouncement. I really do. This isn't one though. It sounds like it is. It sounds like someone thinking about the whole development of young people which after the limitations presented by the Ebacc is welcome.

But that's not what's going on here. If Damien Hinds had stood up and recited Kipling's ‘If’, he couldn't have presented more Victorian values if he had tried. He talked about the importance of church schools, the Scouts and ‘public school confidence’ – all great things in their own way but they're not really speaking to Jakub or Zahara living in North London or Wolverhampton or Leeds.

These things depend on access and parents and money being available to all young people, and Mr Hinds’ suggestions of financial aid focus away from the kind of initiative developed in a school setting, the only place where access for all is an achievable goal.

Anyone who saw the recent documentary The Choir where four young women deeply affected by the Grenville Tower fire were allowed to use their Drama skills, clearly learned in class, to express their feelings and their views, can't doubt their character: but would they have been able to express this so powerfully without being taught Drama in a Drama lesson in a Performing Arts school?

There is one reference to Drama in ‘five foundations’ and it focuses on performance. Never mind creativity being part of the process or that young people can learn through the process of putting on a show, skills required in the world of work.

And where does he end? Not with Drama. Not with any of the arts. But with school sports. Play up and play the game, chaps!