Key Stage 3 English · Spoken English

KS3 English: performing play scripts and poetry

In English lessons in Years 7 to 9, pupils don’t only read plays and poems: they get them off the page. They improvise scenes, rehearse and perform scripts and poetry, and use their voices and bodies to add impact. The point is not stage skills for their own sake. Performing makes pupils generate language, make decisions about meaning and discuss exactly how a line should be said and why.

Improvising and performing scripts and poetry, explained

The Key Stage 3 curriculum names performance as a way of speaking confidently and effectively. Pupils improvise, rehearse and perform play scripts and poetry “in order to generate language and discuss language use and meaning”. In other words, performance is a route into understanding. A pupil who has to decide whether a character says a line angrily, sadly or sarcastically has to understand what the line means and what is going on underneath it. That can reveal more than a quiet read at a desk.

Improvisation means making up a scene without a script. Teachers use it to explore a character’s situation before or after a scene in the text: what would Macbeth say to a friend the morning after the murder, or how might a character in a poem explain themselves to a stranger? Pupils work in pairs or small groups, trying out language, responding in the moment and listening to each other. The ideas generated often feed back into discussion and writing about the text.

Rehearsal and performance bring in the tools the curriculum lists. Role means taking on a character’s point of view. Intonation is the rise and fall of the voice. Tone and mood show attitude and feeling. Volume, silence and stillness are powerful when used on purpose: a pause before a key word, a whisper rather than a shout, or standing completely still while another character speaks. Action covers gesture, facial expression and movement. Pupils learn to make these choices deliberately and to explain them, so a teacher will ask “why did you pause there?” as often as “well done”.

With poetry, the same approach works on a small scale. Reading a poem aloud lets pupils hear rhythm, rhyme and line breaks, and decide where the stresses and pauses fall. Two pupils can perform the same stanza in quite different ways, which leads to useful arguments about which version best fits the words. Many teenagers dislike performing in front of others, and teachers know that. They normally build up gradually, from pairs to small groups to the whole class, and they praise careful choices over loud ones.

Words your child will hear

Improvise: To act or speak without a script, making up the words in the moment.
Role: The character a performer takes on, speaking and acting from that character’s point of view.
Intonation: The rise and fall of the voice as you speak, which shows feeling and meaning.
Tone: The attitude carried by the voice, such as sarcastic, tender, anxious or commanding.
Pause: A deliberate silence, used to add emphasis, build tension or let a thought land.
Stage directions: Instructions in a script about how a line should be spoken or what the actors should do.
Stress: The extra weight placed on a word or syllable, which can change the meaning of a sentence.

What the National Curriculum says

In Key Stage 3, pupils should be taught to:

Speak confidently and effectively through improvising, rehearsing and performing play scripts and poetry in order to generate language and discuss language use and meaning
Use role, intonation, tone, volume, mood, silence, stillness and action to add impact when improvising, rehearsing and performing play scripts and poetry

Objectives from the National Curriculum in England, © Crown copyright, used under the Open Government Licence v3.0.

Try it: one line, many meanings

Take a plain line from a scene, such as “I didn’t say he stole it.” How can a performer change its meaning without changing a single word?

Stress different words. Put the stress on “I”: it suggests someone else said it. Stress “say”: it hints that the speaker thinks it, or implied it, but didn’t say it. Stress “he”: it suggests someone else is the thief. Stress “stole”: perhaps he borrowed it, damaged it or found it.
Change the intonation and tone. Said with a rising voice and a smile, the line sounds teasing. Said flat and fast, it sounds defensive. Said slowly, almost whispered, it can sound like a warning.
Add silence or stillness. A long pause before “stole” makes the audience wait for the word and adds suspicion. Stopping all movement while the line is spoken makes it feel more serious.
Decide using the context. Look at what has happened in the scene and who the speaker is talking to. The choice that fits the situation and relationships best is the strongest one, and the performer can explain why.

The same six words can show innocence, accusation, teasing or threat depending on stress, tone, silence and action. Performers choose by checking the line against the scene and by being able to explain the decision, which is exactly the discussion of language use and meaning that the curriculum asks for.

Common mistakes and how to help

Performing means being loud and dramatic

Pupils copy the broad acting they see in comedies and think confidence means volume. This can drown out subtle meaning.

What helps: Show that a quiet, controlled delivery can be more powerful. Try a line at three volumes and talk about which fits the scene.

There is one right way to say a line

Pupils are used to right answers, so they look for the correct delivery rather than making a reasoned choice.

What helps: Ask them to try the line two ways and say which they prefer and why. A choice backed by evidence from the text is better than a guess at what the teacher wants.

A pause means you have forgotten your words

Nervous speakers rush to avoid silence, which flattens the performance.

What helps: Practise counting two silently before a key word. Explain that professional actors use silence all the time, and pauses seem much longer to the speaker than to the audience.

Reading aloud is the same as performing

A monotone reading gets the words out but doesn’t convey any meaning.

What helps: Encourage your child to mark up a copy: underline stressed words, put slashes for pauses and note the tone for each line. The marks show the interpretation in black and white.

How to help at home

Read a scene together. Take a short scene from a play your child is studying, or any short script, and read the parts aloud. Swap parts and try the same lines again in a different way.
Say it five ways. Pick an everyday sentence, such as “Fine, I’ll do it.” Say it as if annoyed, relieved, afraid, joking and secretly delighted. Talk about which words your voice changed.
Perform a poem to an audience of one. Ask your child to read a favourite poem aloud twice, first quickly and then with planned pauses and stresses. Ask which version said more.
Improvise a what-happens-next. Take a scene from a book or film and invent the conversation that happens afterwards. Staying in character and keeping the language true to them is harder than it sounds.

Builds on

Years 5 and 6: Active listening and discussion
Years 5 and 6: Arguing, hypothesising and evaluating
Years 5 and 6: Public speaking, performance and register

Leads on to

Key Stage 4: Group discussion and listening
Key Stage 4: Presentations, debates and performance