AQA Drama - Massive Panic!

[hawleybits]

I'm really in a flap!
DS has his Drams GCSE soon and just announced, he thinks his Drama GCSE class has studied Macbeth in error.

I've looked at the specification (or at least the one I believe is correct) and it doesn't appear on the list of resources. It's AQA.

Please can someone with more knowledge, tell me this can't be true. If so, it wouldn't be the first time the Drama department has taught the wrong text!!

Please let there be a drama teacher here tonight

Email the drama teacher? Teachers are often available on email in the evenings and if there has been an error, the sooner they are alerted the better.

I hope you're wrong!

He maybe have muddled up the spec he is studying and the one that starts next year. I think his year does not specify any plays but the new one has A midsummer nights dream for component 1 which (if studied, there are other choices) means you can't study Shakespeare for component 3.
The new spec isn't examined until 2018 so not his year? He may have spoken to a year 10 and got confused?

Disclaimer: I am an English teacher so may be mistaken....

I'm on the verge of emailing school but I want to be more sure of the facts before I go wading in.

Is it this spec? filestore.aqa.org.uk/subjects/AQA-4240-W-SP-14.PDF

I think the teachers can select which plays they want to for the modules they moderate

Yes, Allthebest, that's the spec.
If it's true that teachers can decide which plays to study, my panic is over possibly.

This happened to me, we learnt the wrong piece for A level Music - it was the main piece too. We had a few weeks on the new one. I still had an A, so a few weeks can work. Contact the school asap so that you can address the issue.

This is the bit I've been looking at with regards resources for 2017 exam.
filestore.aqa.org.uk/subjects/AQA-4240-W-TRB-RL.PDF

Dd says it doesn't matter what the play is just as long as you can analyse and describe a performance of it. She has seen Macbeth but has chosen to do An Inspector Calls which she saw most recently.

Thank you LIZS. It sounds a likely explanation. I just wonder why they bother having a list of texts to choose from if that's the case?

I've caved in and emailed the Drama teacher. I can't rest until I know what is going on!

I don't think there is a list to choose from on the spec your son is studying. The one that started this year (examined in 2018) has a restrictive list.
Did you read my post?

Yes Blue, sorry, I read your post. I believe this is the spec:

www.aqa.org.uk/subjects/drama/gcse/drama-4240

There are lists of single texts.

Maybe I'm being dense (likely as I'm getting to grips with the new English gcse myself!) but I can't see a set text list on that syllabus and the exam questions on the website are written very generally.
I've electronically searched the syallbus for "The Crucible", the play our drama students studied last year and it's not mentioned.

Normally when there are set texts they set specific questions for each. For example in the new spec exams there are separate questions for The Crucible, Blood Brothers, The 39 Steps, Hansel and Gretal, Noughts and Crosses and A Midsummer Night's Dream.

http://filestore.aqa.org.uk/subjects/AQA-4240-W-TRB-RL.PDF
Maybe this link shows it better Blue? I'm rubbish at links myself

Any update?

Oh yes. I sent a thoroughly pleasant email and got this response.

Centres are requested to note that there will be a change to the GCSE Drama Unit 3 texts for teaching in September 2013 with the first assessment of these texts taking place in the 2015 summer series. The list of updated texts is as follows: 1. Burning Monkey by Sera Moore Williams (Methuen: 97814725283911) 2. Macbeth by William Shakespeare (Penguin Classics: 97801410136955) 3. Our Town by Thornton Wilder (Penguin Classics: 97801411845866) 4. Face (The Play) by Benjamin Zephaniah and Richard Conlon (Heinemann: 97804352334400) 5. Confusions by Alan Ayckbourn (Heinemann: 97804352330099_) In addition to the set text, candidates will be expected to provide an evaluation of their group’s Unit 2 performance from a text.

No, Hello Hawleybits or regards ...

I think I pissed him off

I suspect yours might not have been the first email in thst case and he has cut and pasted the reply from an email he got! At least it is the correct play!

He should have been polite, but he probably was a bit miffed that you thought he had cocredit up so spectacularly. I got an email once, copied to the Head, saying I had entered a child for the wrong paper. I hadn't, but actually I have known it happen in a different subject. I replied very politely indeed

Cocredit = cocked

Are you sure it's AQA? AQA doesn't have any set texts until next year, but the texts mentioned in the email are the wjec ones. In any case the play your DD has studied will be fine.

Sorry DS