This coming September will see two new Leaving Certificate subjects introduced for 5th year students in an initial 100 post-primary schools across the country.
The subjects are Drama, Film and Theatre Studies, and Climate Action and Sustainable Development.
Both promise to be highly practical subjects, with between 40% and 50% of students' final marks awarded for projects submitted for marking in students’ final year of study.
St Anne’s Community College in Co Clare is among the first 57 schools to offer Drama, Film and Theatre Studies.
A further 43 will offer the second new subject.
Around 20 students currently in Transition Year at the Killaloe school hope to study Drama, Film and Theatre Studies.
This week, they were throwing their energy into final preparations for an arts festival they are running in the school tomorrow.
The school hall and an interior courtyard were buzzing as TY students erecting bunting, painted signs, and set up stalls.
Students were also getting last-minute tips on running a festival or learning DJ skills from visiting industry experts.
This festival, supported by the Arts Council’s Creative Schools Project, is the kind of highly creative, hands-on learning experience that is usually confined to Transition Year.
However, the new subject of Drama, Film and Theatre Studies aims to allow learning like this to continue on into Senior Cycle, and count when it comes to accreditation and CAO points.
The course promises to be intensely practical.
Half of all marks will be awarded for a creative project made by students in response to a specific brief set out by the State Examinations Commission.
Students will devise or develop a short creative piece for either theatre or film. They will perform it before a live audience and then explain and evaluate their work.
The other 50% of marks will be awarded for a more traditional written exam.
"This is a highly practical and applied subject where students get the opportunity not only to learn about theatre and film but to get involved in it as well," Mary-Elaine Tynan, Education Officer with the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment, explained.
The course is aimed at a wide variety of students who may wish to learn about many different aspects of theatre and filmmaking, with a view to working in the industry, or simply as a hobby.
"It’s not just about students who want to be in front of camera or on the stage," Ms Tynan said.
"[The industry] also has a huge need for people behind the camera, people who want to do filmmaking or directing, also students who maybe want to work behind the [theatre] set. So it's not just about the performers," she said.
At St Anne’s, TY students said they were very excited at the thought of the new subject.
"For the last four years, we’ve been such a creative school, with musicals and the festival. Before we would leave it in TY whereas now with this new subject we get to continue it on," said Maria Kennedy.
She and Abbie McLeish were busy tying rainbow coloured ribbons to a central exhibit in the school courtyard.
"I’ve always loved drama and film and this area has always been looked at as kind of a hobby. But now that it is a subject it is looked at as a more serious thing. It's going to really open up people’s minds to doing this as a career successfully," Abbie said.
Max McKenna and Emma Andrews were with another group of students painting pottery that they made themselves, also in preparation for tomorrow’s arts fair.
Max will study both music and the new drama subject and he says he feels really lucky.
"This, and music, two really creative subjects and I love doing creative stuff," he said.
"It’s the perfect subject for creative people. There’s lots of project work and so you get to do all sorts of stuff," he said.
"I love acting and I did the school musical I got to act in that, and I love English as well and I think there’s a lot of English involved, so I just can’t wait," Emma said.
However, parents may wonder about the subject. Does it have academic rigour?
"It absolutely does," Mary-Elaine Tynan said.
She has been key to designing the new subject within the NCCA.
"This is a Leaving Certificate subject as valuable and as important as any other and you can get just as many CAO points," she said.
Teachers Clare O’Brien and Maree Murphy will teach the new subject. They feel like pioneers.
"We do feel like we are charting new territory," said Maree.
She has been teaching drama as an extracurricular subject at the school.
"I feel excited. As someone who's been teaching drama here for 20 years and putting on shows, I feel it’s really, really great to see that this is going to be accredited in the classroom and with the points system.
"Before, it was always something that was more a hobby that we were doing with the students on an extracurricular level," she said.
The two teachers have had five days of training to date, coming together with teachers from other pilot schools to gain practical skills in both theatre and film-making.
They describe the training as "really fun" and "really active" and speak highly of collaboration with teachers in other nearby schools, a collaboration they expect will continue as the new subject beds down.
Their next training will be online and will focus on sample examination papers.
"We will be getting into the nitty gritty of what the term will look like," Clare O’Brien said "and how to blend the theory with the practice".
However, what about resources, and funding? Practical subjects can cost more. Visits to the theatre and to see films must surely feature.
"We will be given equipment, so that is reassuring," said Ms O’Brien. As for trips to the theatre, she is confident the school will manage.
"We are well placed. We are very close to Limerick with its Lime Tree and Belltable theatres," she said.
She muses about potential cooperation with one other school not far away, also offering the subject, to make the hiring of buses for such trips more affordable.
"This subject is for everybody, and that is the beauty of it," she added.
"You can see where the practical learner will really thrive because it is project-based, 50% is project-based, all the way up to the people who will be really interested in the academic side of things, you know, the theory of drama or film productions. It is really very open," Ms O’Brien said.
The sense of excitement among students and teachers at the school about the new subject felt infectious.
They all seem overjoyed to have this opportunity.
"It is new. It is innovative. That is not some to be afraid of," said Maree Murphy.
"It is something to be embraced," she added.
For students in other schools, beyond those in the first phase of subject rollout, Drama, Film and Theatre will not be extended to other schools until 2027 at the earliest. So it will be a number of years yet before access is widespread.
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