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NSW Curriculum
NSW Education Standards Authority

11–12Drama 11–12 Syllabus (2025)

Implementation from 2027
Expand for detailed implementation advice

Content

Year 12

Australian drama and theatre

Students explore how Australian practitioners use dramatic forms, styles and conventions to convey ideas and perspectives through the study of TWO prescribed Australian works. Students analyse dramatic contexts, experiment with dramatic elements and apply dramatic processes to interpret and embody dramatic moments and explore dramatic meaning. Students create and engage in meaningful theatrical experiences that consider Australian voices, perspectives and representations and critically reflect on audience engagement with the ideas and images presented in the works.

Making
  • Investigate the artistic, cultural, social, political and personal contexts of dramatic practitioners, forms and styles

  • Experiment with and adapt dramatic forms and styles to shape ideas and express Australian voices, perspectives and representations

  • Create and shape scenes and images to examine challenges and opportunities in Australian works

  • Explore the dramatic contexts of characters, roles or relationships through embodied exercises

  • Experiment with dramatic elements to shape dramatic intention and meaning

  • Apply the elements of production to shape dramatic meaning and audience engagement

  • Explore and experiment with the dynamics of the actor–audience relationship and its impact on audience engagement

Performing
  • Use voice and movement to embody a character or role in artistic, cultural, social and personal contexts

  • Enact scenes to explore the conventions and approaches used to develop characters and their roles

  • Stage dramatic action to experiment with characters’ perspectives and relationships within works

  • Shape the audience experience through deliberate actor choices and relationships

  • Interpret and perform characters or roles to realise creative intent and explore character relationships

  • Apply the dramatic elements in performance to stage interpretations of prescribed works

Critically reflecting
  • Analyse how dramatic works and practitioners shape meaning through the representation of values and assumptions in artistic, cultural, social and personal contexts

  • Analyse how perspectives, values and traditions influence dramatic processes and the development of dramatic works

  • Evaluate the impacts of dramatic form and style on dramatic meaning and audience engagement, including use of language

  • Reflect on the ways dramatic elements are used to represent identities, environments and culture

  • Evaluate the ways the ideas, processes and practices of dramatic practitioners are applied in dramatic works to shape meaning and influence audience engagement

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