Expressive Arts at Southfields Academy

1
Expressive Arts at Southfields Academy Southfields
Academys expressive arts department has been
busy over the last half term. We ended both the
Year 11 and Year 13 courses with two spectacular
performances and we eagerly await our results
for the Year 11. However, we are pleased to
confirm our results for the Year 13 level 3 BTEC
performing arts students 100 merit and above
and 90 achieving a distinction
distinction. There is a lot of discussion being
had about the performing arts place in education
at the moment but embedding creativity in the
curriculum has been beneficial to these Year 13
students. Many of them will not be studying the
arts at university, however, they are well
equipped with high grades to enter the UCAS
system and have applied to top universities as a
result. For those students entering the world of
work the performing arts course that they have
studied over the last two years has been
valuable as 1 in 6 London jobs are creative which
generates 68.4 billion into the UK economy.
These students have had a broad and varied arts
curriculum and so many feel confident to apply
for these roles. We wish them the best of luck.
This has and will continue to be a priority for
the department and as a result we have booked a
workshop with Cultivate Ambitions, an
inspirational session that aims to encourage
creative careers. This will be open to Year 9 and
10 students as well as our older students who
will return to Southfields Academy on Wednesday
28th June. This will be hosted by Theatre
503. In keeping with offering our students a
plethora of arts experiences we have been lucky
enough to have booked two visiting dance artist
companies that have been leading fantastic
workshops for our dancers in Year 10. These
companies not only performed and delivered
practical performance and choreographic
workshops but also engaged in discussion about
how to enter the creative industries, including
how to set up your own dance company and how to
make this financially viable a rich and
fantastic opportunity which the dance students
relished. Both companies have been integral in
supporting the Year 10s in creating their own
production which will be shown on the 14th June
at 4pm in the black box. We have also had
Zoonation delivering a house and hip hop workshop
to the dancers of Year 9. They had a masterclass
in learning the original repertoire from the West
End show The Mad Hatters Tea Party, and this
will also be performed on the 14th June, so
please do come along and watch. We have had two
Year 7 drama showcases which provided a platform
for other members of staff to see what the very
talented and committed Year 7s have been creating
and performing in their lessons. These were
fantastic, with full scale productions that
included costume, lights and music and because
of this high standard of work we will offer these
performance platforms more regularly this half
term and in the next academic year and we would
love to see many parents and careers in the
audience where this is possible. Speaking of our
younger members of the academy, Year 7, 8 and 9
students have been busy rehearsing and
performing an extract of Jungle Book. This has
been to the West Side Story whole- school
production and auditions for the cast will be
open to all year groups, but we are especially
keen to scout our younger members of the academy
from Years 7 and 8 and we will host these over
the next two weeks. In our final half term of
the year two final dance shows are coming up The
Southfields Academy Dance Challenge, which will
be hosted by the expressive arts department with
10 primary schools
2
from around the borough performing dance pieces
which they have been busy working on. This is
open to parents and will be the first opportunity
many of these young people will have had to
perform in a professional space like the black
box. This is the first year we are running this
event, so we would like to wish all participants
a very big good luck! It will take place at 4pm
on Tuesday 13th June. Our final show of the year
will be the eagerly anticipated summer dance
show, Elevate. This will be a showcase of all of
the dance talent here at Southfields and a final
assessment for the Year 9 and 10 students. Their
pieces are stunning so please do come and watch
at 4pm on the 14th June in the black box.