disadvantage (noun) · disadvantages (plural noun)
1. an unfavourable circumstance or condition that reduces the chances of success or effectiveness:
"situations of serious social and economic disadvantage" verb
disadvantage (verb) · disadvantages (third person present) · disadvantaged (past tense) · disadvantaged (past participle) · disadvantaging (present participle)
1. put in an unfavourable position in relation to someone or something else
Disadvantaged is a word which doesn’t sit right with me. However, without an adequate substitute, it is the word I will use and one which is synonymous with our settings.
I was a “disadvantaged” child, but my childhood was sprinkled with advantage by my mother, sisters, school and performing arts. I was a chronically shy child; I once cried and hid under a table whilst my friends sang happy birthday to me at my 6th birthday party. It wasn’t until I was 15, at my secondary school when I decided to bite the bullet and sing in front of a group. I was so proud, even if I did decide to sing “1000 Miles” by Vanessa Carlton.
I hadn’t taken Drama as a GCSE option and was ecstatic to find out that I had been accepted onto my school’s Theatre Studies A-Level course. Here, my love and fascination grew. I didn’t realise at the time, and maybe my cultural gap was quickly closed due to theatre very quickly becoming my special interest, but there was so little I had seen, so little I knew.
Now that I am the Head of Drama in a “disadvantaged” area of Birmingham, I am more than cognisant to the journey my children are on
It wasn’t until I was 18 that I realised my mum would make sure we were fed, and wouldn’t eat herself, or that she would give up her money to let us go on school trips instead of catering for her own basic needs, that I realised just how advantaged I had been in having her.
Now that I am the Head of Drama in a “disadvantaged” area of Birmingham, I am more than cognisant to the journey my children are on, and what they may need from my subject. I truly believe drama gives a voice to children who may not necessarily have one.
With Birmingham City Council announcing that there will be £300m worth of cuts to services over the next two years, and Birmingham Arts Schools offering GCSE Drama and Dance through The Birmingham Rep and Birmingham Royal Ballet because some schools and policy makers are simply not offering it as an option, how can we ensure that our students are receiving the best, cultural, diverse, holistic curriculum they can be? Alongside living in a post-COVID world where Larivière-Bastien et. al, (2022, p1) concluded that “Good quality friendships and relationships are critical to the development of social competence and are associated with quality of life and mental health in childhood and adolescence” .
We are seeing a spike in behavioural issues across the UK and, as a drama practitioner, it is obvious to me that children being unable to access play and socialisation with children their own age in their formative years, has led to them being unable to enact age-appropriate behaviour when dropped back into the school system. Alongside the drop in literacy and numeracy skills despite the 2021 COVID-recovery. Does it then fall upon us to offer these key developmental scenarios in our drama spaces? In short, yes.
The government’s “Help Your Child Make the Best GCSE Choices” says “while arts and music are not included in the EBacc, every child should still experience a high-quality arts and cultural education throughout their time at school as part of a balanced curriculum”. My question is: how? With every curriculum area having so much content to cover, how is it possible to give all children a “high-quality arts and cultural education” with no time. In 2019, the National Association of Head Teachers stated that the “EBacc could remain an option in the secondary sector, but, if it does, it should not be compulsory for all, or even the majority, and it should embrace a much greater breadth of curriculum choice.”
Something is rotten in the state of British theatre – and the decay is starting in schools.
With conversations rife with “curriculum reform”, and an upcoming General Election looming, one wonders what this will mean for the state of arts education in schools. And something does need to change. “Something is rotten in the state of British theatre – and the decay is starting in schools.”
While 33% of the British population has a working-class background, only 16% of British actors come from similar backgrounds. In contrast, individuals with a ‘privileged’ background, comprising just 29% of the population, make up 51% of today’s actors. This disparity matters both on a societal level and financially. When certain segments of the population are underrepresented, their voices struggle to be heard, and their stories remain untold. In order to counteract this “rot”, we have moved to a concept-based curriculum in my department to ensure that all students are being educated holistically to not only support their social and moral diet, but also to challenge them academically. We are thinking forward to the key concepts they may need to understand in History and English, such as “ambition”, through a range of theatre practitioners.
Being a trauma informed practitioner is so vitally important with the epidemic of the decline of adolescent mental health. Many children find solace in the drama studio. In a recent student voice conducted with all my department’s pupils, 92% of pupils said that they felt safe to explore their thoughts and feelings in the drama studio. So, which practices do I use to help them to explore this is a safe way. Here, it needs to be stated that I am not a Drama Therapist, but I do know a lot about drama therapy. Some of the processes of drama therapy are very applicable in our rooms.
Since I started to plan my dissertation over a decade ago, I fell in love with the Sesame approach, which combines Drama, Play and Jungian psychology to assist one in finding the “self”. Storytelling and movement, as the earliest forms of communicating stories, assist the patients to tell their stories and their truth in a safe setting. Sound familiar? Drama is a therapeutic tool, it was for me growing up in “disadvantage” and if you have taken part in drama, I imagine it has been for you.
Drama can and does academically, socially and morally develop children from “disadvantaged” backgrounds. It is our job to continue to bridge the gap piece by piece and student by student because they deserve to be gifted the same opportunities as others more advantaged and to have equity in the rest of their lives.
Joanna is Head of Drama at Christ Church C of E Secondary Academy, part of the Birmingham Diocesan Multi-Academy Trust.
References:
Larivière-Bastien, D., Aubuchon, O., Blondin, A., Dupont, D., Libenstein, J., Séguin, F., Tremblay, A., Zarglayoun, H., Herba, C. M., & Beauchamp, M. H. (2022). Children's perspectives on friendships and socialization during the COVID-19 pandemic: A qualitative approach. Child: care, health and development, 48(6), 1017–1030. https://doi.org/10.1111/cch.12998
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