Expressive Arts at Southfields Academy

1. Expressive Arts at Southfields Academy Southfields Academy’s 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 Hatter’s 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.