Secret Teacher: Issue 98

During the last 18 months, amid the worries, moans and complaints from others, my students have remained positive. It has been astonishing how their attitude has increased my faith in them.

During lockdown they tried their best to carry out research into practitioners, their works, styles and techniques. They worked independently and some produced beautiful presentations while others floundered, finding it difficult to work on their own. We tried small group work on Teams – this went well for those who enjoyed working with their friends online. Some offered to lead a choreographic workshop on a number they were preparing for a show; this was partially successful, but what of the student sharing a bedroom who has nowhere to practise the dance?

When we returned to college, we had just a month to put on 8 ‘bubble shows'. With students in college on alternate weeks, that left one bubble at home learning lines and songs and the other in college, rehearsing while social distancing. The challenge seemed enormous. The threat and reality of isolations increased the tension, making the task seem impossible at times. We had no rehearsal time out of lessons as students were asked to leave the site as soon as their lessons were finished.

What then happened was amazing.

• Their thirst for knowledge and desire to succeed meant that the Performing Arts BTEC students completed extra units and had a choice of units for submission. Dance A Level students redid essays to improve their marks and were happy to do several timed essays in class in order to achieve their best mark
• Students were filmed every lesson to create a bank of evidence showing progress from rehearsal to final performance
• All eight ‘bubble shows' in musical theatre took place, with every student giving at least one solo and one group performance (with 66 students in all). These were fully costumed and performed with sound and lighting like a normal show but there was no invited audience
• Every student was interviewed on camera so that a range of questions could be asked to cover assessment objectives in case earlier tasks had not been completed or attempted
• Dance A Level students became used to the camera and even started to give lecture demonstrations to camera about their solo work.

And the most wonderful thing that happened was that no-one wasted any time.

Do you have views you'd like to express anonymously? Get in touch with the editor at sarah.lambie@markallengroup.com and ask if you can contribute a Secret Teacher column. We'd love to hear from you!