A New Subject and New Opportunities for GEMINI’s Toolkit in Ireland

By Izzy Fox, December 20 2024

From September 2025, a new subject Drama, Film and Theatre Studies will be piloted in 57 Irish secondary schools. The subject will be taught at Senior Cycle level, as part of the Leaving Certificate programme, which sees 16-18 year-old students engage in a mixture of project work, as well as terminal examinations in about seven subjects, the ratio of which differs depending on the particular subject. For instance, assessment of the new Drama, Film and Theatre Studies subject will be split 50/50 between coursework (known as The Creativity in Practice Project) and a final written exam.

The new subject combines creative and critical work produced both individually and as part of a group. The students will learn about performance and scriptwriting, the history and theory underpinning the subject, as well as acquiring technical, production and design skills. This subject will also provide opportunities for students to either produce and screen their own short film, or to stage and perform their own theatrical piece.

The students who choose Drama, Film and Theatre Studies will also develop more general competencies such as listening, organisation and team work. In addition, the three inter-connected strands of 1) Creative Process, 2) Critical Response Process, and 3) Applied Critical Tasks (ACTs: see Figure 1), as outlined in the new subject’s specification, provide opportunities for GEMINI’s toolkit of educational resources.

Figure 1: Leaving Certificate Drama, Film and Theatre Studies Strands

Traditionally the Irish secondary school curriculum provides little flexibility for individual schools or teachers to introduce a new module or modes of assessment, which is why it has been recommended that the non-exam year of Transition Year (TY: 15-16 year-olds), between the Junior and Senior Cycles, be used for piloting the GEMINI toolkit. However, the fact that drama is a core component of the new subject, as well its creative and practical aspects, points to the possibilities of an expansive understanding of the genre, to include, although not mentioned specifically, televised drama series, as well as theatrical plays.

Concomitantly, even if the study of TV drama is beyond the scope of the new subject, the critical and creative skills that the GEMINI toolkit nurtures and develops, should it be taught in TY, provides an essential grounding in the key skills of scriptwriting, cultural analysis and narrative study, which will serve students well in Drama, Film and Theatre Studies at Leaving Cert. level. This promises to make the GEMINI toolkit appealing for secondary school teachers across the country, when the new subject is eventually rolled out on a national basis.