How is Drama considered as an A-level?

[Brogues]

DD wants Drama as one of her A-level choices. Both me and her dad are STEM graduates and middle aged/boring with it so Drama is a bit artsy for us and we don’t know how it is considered by universities.

She wants to do History and English Lit with it and these are her top scoring (predicted 8/9) subjects at GCSE. She doesn’t know what career she wants to do and is involved in school drama groups and a youth theatre group outside of school.

Any advice? Should we let her follow her heart on this or is it a pointless A-level in terms of progressing to a degree course?

Goes great with Lit! Good combination there. Won't be a problem for unis at all.

My parents stopped me pursuing drama as GCSE (so not quite the same) and I’m still pissed off about it.

It depends what she wants to do in the future. I don't think it's sneered at. I went to quite an academic grammar school and it was offered at gcse and a level.

That's a good set of A-levels for a degree in literature, history, politics, law etc, showing that she can be creative, practical, confident and work as part of a team as well as being analytical.

My daughter did drama along with biology and chemistry. She is in her last year at medical school and nobody ever questioned the drama A level.

The communication skills learned are very useful if you want to be a doctor.

I did drama at A Level, and it’s not all performing! There’s watching and reviewing performances and also essays on the play scripts as well. It does go well with English lit.

Theres a lot of essay writing and analysis v like eng lit.... its not the easy subject some think it is. Like all the creative subjects!
DS1 did Art , bio and chem
DS2 is doing music, bio, chem and maths
Both found/ are finding the arts subjects the hardest
Not one uni has said they look unfavourably on the creative subjects.
Let her do what she loves. It's a slog otherwise.

Of course it's not pointless. For a start many people go in to study theatre or drama as a subject in its own right at BA level, or - shock horror - go into acting training.

Those that don't pursue drama degrees still find Drama A'Level an incredibly rich choice to support their understanding of world events, different periods in history, cultural and social contextualisation - all of which fits perfectly with her other two choices.

In addition to the academic side of Drama, the acting training is beneficial for anyone moving into any kind of front facing jobs - eg teaching, Law, project management etc.

I chose my own subjects but in hindsight I could have done with a little more guidance. To be fair I was completely ahead of the curve and my three are now considered to be a proper combination bio/chem/psych!

Shes at a very good school and the fact that they offer it should be enough to persuade me it’s a valid choice you are right.

DD has good maths skills but her confidence in it means she wouldn’t enjoy it as an A-level. Pleased to see it’s still the case that maths isn’t a prerequisite for everything.

She’d love to get involved in directing hence the drama groups but is a confident performer. Bloody loves writing essays though :)

I did clarify pointless in terms of degree level education not that the arts are pointless. She hasn’t said she wants to do arts at degree level so I don’t want it to narrow her options.

Thanks everyone. Some good food for thought.

No but a real problem for many end careers. If getting to uni to do whatever is the goal then this poster is right. If she wants to be a lawyer, doctor, accountant etc it’s an issue, she needs to decide what she wants to do.

In addition to the academic side of Drama, the acting training is beneficial for anyone moving into any kind of front facing jobs - eg teaching, Law, project management etc.

this wins the award for the most ridiculous statement on line.

I mean times may have changed but I qualified with art and drama A level equivalents (Scotland) and had no problem getting a university place, and don’t think there’s ever a stipulation of say ‘4 A’s but they can’t include xyz’. Only what it should include.

Also I would like to add that my drama qualifications at school were by far the hardest I worked during my school career. It was hefty and very broad in what was taught.

I did Theatre Studies at A level, I think we ended up putting in more hours due to rehearsals, performances & theatre trips than any other subject! I did Theatre Studies, English Lit, Media Studies & Physics.

I’m slightly biased as I trained as a KS2 teacher and a Lambda drama teacher, but drama at A level encompasses performing of course (if that’s the specialism the student chooses), but it is so much more than that. Communication skills, teamwork, technical theatre, lighting, stage management, advertising, set building, studying theatre practitioners like Brecht, Gordon Craig, Stanislavsky, studying texts from around the world (Lorca & Strindberg for example) and the socio-economic & political backgrounds that influenced their writing, interpreting text from page to performance, movement, composition & comprehension; so many skills that can be applied to other A levels. English Lit is a natural bedfellow to drama, but I’ve seen students taking history, geography, economics & public affairs, environmental studies, alongside more obvious choices like media studies & dance.

I attended a Russell Group Uni (although entrance criteria may have changed of course). My son also took Theatre Studies alongside law, psychology & media studies and likewise joined a Russell Group Uni. He’d already taken Trinity Guildhall exams to a higher level than the A level with more UCAS points & was a professional actor from the age of 8, but he still chose it because it gave him the opportuni

(Oops 40kg doodle jumped onto my lap lol) …Opportunity to study the history behind the texts he was performing in a greater depth than he had before.

I did drama A-level, ours was 50/50 performance and coursework of which a lot was essays.
When I enrolled I was told that it was fine to do drama even if I wanted to go to a serious uni later as my other two subjects were 'approved'.
I don't know if this is the case anywhere else, but they said that subjects like english lit, history, fine art, chemistry etc were approved and universities preferred you to have at least two of those and then you could have a 'second level' course as well like drama, criminology, sociology, media studies etc and then they counted vocational courses below that.

I don't know if thats true or just something a staff member made up to get me to take certain courses, but my university did not care at all what I got my A-levels in anyway as I went to study something unrelated.

Drama was great though- I made a lot of friends through it and the skills are useful in adult life.

No but a real problem for many end careers. If getting to uni to do whatever is the goal then this poster is right. If she wants to be a lawyer, doctor, accountant etc it’s an issue,
Accountant don't need degrees. Drama, History and Lit is a fantastic combination for a would-be lawyer. If she wanted to be a medic she'd be choosing something completely different anyway. So that was a very odd thing for you to post.

My advice to my DC is play to your strengths and pick subjects you enjoy and which you're most likely to succeed in. Especially if you don't know what you want to go on to do after. Drama is a great choice with history & English lit. All quite general so plenty of scope uni subject wise off the back of them.

Drama is an excellent choice with her other subjects! It draws on elements of politics, history, psychology, literature, design as well as the more obvious personal performance/ confidence/ presentation elements.

Someone at DS's school got the top mark in A level drama in the country and went to Cambridge and now works as a City-based management consultant. It's a very well-respected subject.

I have an academic STEM child and an averagely bright 'drama' child (studying it at uni). In many ways our drama child navigates the world more successfully due to their general confidence and presentation skills.

I thought all the advise was absolutely to take drama! Certainly at gcse. Because of the confidence/assertiveness/ability to talk in meetings/present etc is a fantastic skill across so so many industries.

Me too!