Speech and Drama Activities

Each year, Oswestry School's Music and English Departments stage a musical production.  Recent years have seen  performances of 'The Sound of Music', 'Fiddler on the Roof', 'Grease' and 'Return to the Forbidden Planet'.  Summer 2006 will bring a production of 'Guys and Dolls' to the PHC, featuring cast members from throughout the school.

The annual House Drama Competition provides and opportunity for the pupils themselves to produce and perform short pieces in competition between the houses.

Special days in the school's calendar, such as Founders Day, Christmas and Speech Day also provide the opportunity for pupils to sing and perform, either in the junior or senior choirs or in the Lower School Nativity performance.

All Lower and Middle School pupils will enter the English Speaking Board (ESB) examinations.  ESB promotes the practice and assessment of oral communication, spoken English and its fundamental importance to education.  Each pupil prepares and delivers a short talk, and a poem they have learnt in a group of their own classmates and an external examiner from the ESB.  Every pupil in the group is encouraged to take part in a question session following each talk, thereby demonstrating listening and responding skills, as well as their own competence as a speaker. All pupils taking part in an ESB assessment become fully involved, both in presenting their own material and as a member of the audience.  Both aspects are assessed and credited and go towards the pupil's final grade.
 
Younger pupils in the school also take part in local poetry and prose festivals, enjoying their participation and achieving good results.  Pupils have also progressed to competions further afield.

The results of all these preparations, rehearsals and examinations are often performed in front of an appreciative audience of parents and friends during an evening of drama, poetry and prose in the PHC.

An increasingly popular opportunity for pupils, friends and staff too to perform drama, comedy, music and poetry is the Parents' Association 'Variety Night'.  This year's event, 'Variety Night 3', was the best yet with monologues, comedy sketches, bands and solo instrument performances entertaining a sell out audience in the PHC.