Drama Teacher: Job Profile and Role

Have you always enjoyed expressing yourself or even being on a stage? Furthermore, have you always been fascinated by the theatre and all the plays that have been written over the millenia? And, lastly, do you enjoy sharing your passion and knowledge with others since you also love working and communicating with people? If that is the case, your perfect job might be the job of a drama teacher.

In this blog, we will explore this job in detail. You will get all the information you need on the required qualifications and skills, the expected annual salaries, future employers, and your average weekly working hours. To help you thrive as a drama teacher, we will give you some important tips, including on your continuous learning in this job. You will also get your first glimpse into your working day when we explore three typical tasks you, as a drama teacher, will perform daily.

Short Summary

• As a drama teacher, you are tasked with encouraging self-expression and curiosity in your students which will ideally help them to be more confident.
• As a drama teacher, you are responsible for recognising your students’ needs and giving them individual support where needed.
• As a drama teacher, you are responsible for planning and delivering engaging drama lessons and setting and grading homework, term papers, and exams.

Job description

It is your job as a drama teacher to plan and deliver engaging drama lessons that encourage your students to express themselves and be more confident. Your lessons also need to adhere to the National Curricula and must meet the term’s objectives. As a drama teacher, you should always pay attention to your students’ needs and education levels and give individual support where needed. It will also be your job as a drama teacher to set and grade assignments which will help you give constructive feedback to your students. Lastly, it will be your job as a drama teacher to practise and perform a play. It is also possible that you and your class plan to attend a live performance at a theatre. 

Responsibilities

• Curriculum Planning
• Setting/Grading Exams
• Resource Management
• Extracurricular Activities
• Classroom Management
• Teaching Acting Methods
• Organising/Directing Plays
• Encouraging Self-Expression
• Engaging Learning Experiences
• Encouraging Creativity/Imagination

Different types of Drama Teachers

• Drama School Teacher
• Online Drama Tutor
• College/Post-16 Drama Teacher
• Secondary School Drama Teacher
• Freelance Drama Workshop Leader

Salary

As a drama teacher in the UK, you can expect a starting salary of around ￡32,000 which can increase over the years to about ￡43,000 per year. Note that you will earn these wages if you are a fully qualified teacher. As an assistant drama teacher, you will earn considerably less. For this position, you should calculate an annual salary starting at ￡19,000. 

Aside from your teaching position, your annual salary will be influenced by your employer. It will furthermore be affected by the location of your teaching institution.

Working hours

If your future job as a drama teacher is at a school, your working hours will revolve around the traditional lesson times and typically amount to 37 hours per week. Therefore, you will start work at around 8:30 a.m. and finish at 3:30 p.m. Note that you may work after school has finished, for example, if you are in charge of an after-school drama club. These hours, combined with the time spent on preparing lessons and grading assignments in the evenings and at the weekends, will increase your weekly working hours. Also, keep in mind that these extra hours do not tend to be paid by your employer.

Employers

As a UK-based drama teacher, your first port of call is schools that teach various age groups. As a drama teacher, you can look for drama teaching vacancies at primary and secondary schools or drama colleges and drama schools. It is equally possible for you to look for job openings at universities where you would work as a lecturer. As a drama teacher, you also have the option of working at a theatre, either as a part- or full-time drama teacher or as a freelancer.

Qualifications

If you want to become a drama teacher in the UK, you should first aspire to get good GCSE grades in drama-relevant subjects, such as drama and performing arts. Depending on your further education, you typically need between four and five GCSEs at grades 9 to 4 (A* to C), which should not only include drama and performing arts but also English. Alternatively, you can do the equivalent A-Levels which again should be relevant for your future education as a drama teacher, for example, A-Levels in English literature and performing arts.

Your school qualifications aside, you should look into other qualifications as well. As a future drama teacher, relevant qualifications can be the Professional Graduate Diploma in Education in Drama (SCQF level 11). If you want to teach drama at a UK state school, you will also need to earn your qualified teacher status (QTS) and/or a PGCE (postgraduate certificate in education).

Skills

As a drama teacher, you should have several competencies that both qualify you for the drama teacher’s job and help you to do it well. Communication is one of the skills you need to have, emotional intelligence is another. Naturally, you should always check which skills your future employer especially wants – but we are fairly certain that it will not hurt your future career if you have the following three skills we will now take a look at.

Passion

The name of your job already says it all – you are a drama teacher and, therefore, you teach about plays which you and your students will also likely practice and perform. These plays tend to revolve around personal relationships and emotions and are therefore, in themselves, full of passion. If you, as a drama teacher, lack this vital skill, you will a) not be able to teach your students properly and b) risk that any play you want to perform will nosedive. Also, passion will ensure that your students will be enthusiastic about learning, acting, and performing.

Resilience/Strong Nerves

Even though you are teaching a passionate subject, you will need to be patient and resilient a lot of the time. You will also need strong nerves. This is not necessarily connected to your students’ acting skills but to the fact that students of all age groups can be challenging – be it because they are struggling with their education performance or because they are vying for your attention. Therefore, as a drama teacher, you should pretty much have the patience of a saint, nerves made of steel and resilience tools which will help you to stay calm and carry on teaching.

Leadership Skills

As a drama teacher (or teacher in general), you should also have leadership skills. Ideally, your students regard you as a person to look up to who encourages and inspires them. Your leadership skills will also help you to organise your classroom and to ensure that your students meet the term’s teaching/learning objectives. This skill is also especially important in teaching drama since this subject is not always restricted to a traditional desk-based classroom setup.

Career Path

After finishing your education, you can start looking for job vacancies for drama teachers. In teaching, there are usually no entry-level positions. And even though you begin your teaching career as a fully qualified drama teacher, you will still be the new kid on the block. It tends to take a few years of working as a drama teacher to gain valuable experience. With this and a good work performance, you can think about advancing into more senior positions, for example, as head of the drama department or head of the school.

Educational Background

The most common approach to becoming a drama teacher is completing an undergraduate degree, for example, a Bachelor of Education (BEd) and/or a Bachelor of Arts, for example, in English Literature and Drama. Maybe this also is the right educational background for you. If you would like to approach your future career through a different route, you can also finish a Teacher Level 6 Degree Apprenticeship. The advantage is that you will already gain your first practical teaching experience. We recommend that you also check whether it is possible to complete a teaching-relevant college course.

Teacher Training

Whichever your chosen drama teacher education, you will have to complete your teacher training to later work in this field. Typically, this involves doing your ITT (initial teacher training) which then leads to doing your QTS and/or PGCE. One more important piece of advice: doing a PGCE costs around ￡9,000 which is why you should look into bursaries or scholarships to help you finance this important part of your drama teacher education. 

Continuous Learning

If you want to stay on top of the drama teaching game, you should always look into possible improvements, that is, further qualifications and certifications that advance your career. We recommend that you look into courses on drama-based pedagogy which help you to improve your teaching skills and ensure that you can encourage your students to actively participate in your lessons. You can also benefit from furthering your knowledge of voice and movement techniques and attending courses that focus on continuing education in theatre arts. Another viable option is to look into CPD (professional development courses) courses for teachers.

Not every University offers a PGCE

PGCE courses appropriate for teaching drama are not offered at every UK university. We therefore recommend that you check which universities currently offer Drama PGCE courses and which ones also offer these courses in combination with completing your QTS. 

A Day in the Life of a Drama Teacher

You have decided to become a drama teacher and will therefore know that your working day starts relatively early and usually involves a lot of talking and teaching. So far, so good. But what kind of teaching can await you? And what other tasks will you have to deal with in your working day as a drama teacher? Let’s take a look at what a day in the life of a drama teacher can look like.

Teach about the History of Theatre

As a drama teacher, your intricate knowledge revolves all around the theatre, the plays that have been written in the last few thousand years, and the authors responsible for these plays. Naturally, your students should benefit from your vast expertise on these matters which is why teaching them about the history of the theatre, the plays, and the authors will be a part of your working day as a drama teacher.

Teach your Students Acting

Drama is a very hands-on subject that is not restricted to studying books and being stuck at a desk. Drama is also a subject your students can benefit from enormously if you manage to teach it right. Since the subject is mainly about acting, you need to teach your students to come out of their shells since not everyone is the next Benedict Cumberbatch or happy to express himself or herself in front of others. Tact and empathy are needed when you introduce various voice, acting, rhetoric, and breathing techniques which can help your students become soon-to-be actors on your school’s stage.

Decide on a Play and the Props

Let’s assume that the end-of-term project is the performance of a play. In this case, you and your class first need to agree on a play that you want to perform. This should be a democratic vote, and do not be surprised if not every one of your students will be happy with the choice. After you have decided on a play, you and your students need to think about a date, who plays which character, practising sessions and times, and the props (costumes, stage setting, etc.). This may not be a daily task you perform, but it will take up a lot of time in the weeks and months to come.

Tips for Thriving as a Drama Teacher

As a drama teacher, you encourage your students daily to improve, to thrive, and to be better at acting and expressing themselves. Your students are not the only ones who need to invest time and effort into thriving – you need to as well. In this section, we will give you three tips that help you thrive as a drama teacher in the UK:

• Build a drama network
• Attend drama and teaching workshops
• Improve your subject knowledge

Build a Drama Network

This tip is not half as dramatic as it may sound. By building a drama network, we mean that you should think about liaising with other drama teachers who are not necessarily employed by a state school but by a theatre or special drama school, for instance. Your network can further consist of drama professionals whom you can meet by joining professional organisations like National Drama or UK Theatre which also offers workshops and training.

Attend Drama and Teaching Workshops

This brings us to our second tip: you should attend drama and teaching workshops. Here, you can not only meet other drama teachers and even actors but you will also learn about new ways of teaching acting and acting. Also, you will learn how to apply both acting and teaching tools in your future drama lessons at school.

Improve your Subject Knowledge

Teaching drama involves a certain amount of theoretical knowledge, that is, the history behind the plays. For English plays, this rings especially true for some of Shakespeare’s plays which cover important times in English/British history. As a drama teacher, you have to have a basic knowledge of the historical background. Not only because not having it might trip you up in front of your students but also because understanding the history behind a play will help all of you put it into (a modern) context. Therefore, improving your subject knowledge will help you thrive as a drama teacher.

Frequently Asked Questions