Olivia Slater School of Speech and Drama

20/12/2020

The first term back to class hasn’t been the easiest. The teaching format changed greatly and between isolations, lockdowns, masks, sanitising, sickness, competitions cancelled and the uncertainty over exams I was afraid that the pupils would lose out on so much. Children are so much more resilient than we often think. You’ve been so enthusiastic and I just hope that class was a good outlet and a break from all things covid. I know that you have all given me a much needed lift!

Thankfully, face to face exams were able to go ahead this Winter session, where the pupils were able to present their hard work, wonderful performances and really do themselves justice. Congratulations to you all - Ruby, Anna, Olivia, Sarah, James and Olivia - each receiving a distinction in their LCM Speech and Drama exam. For quite a few, this was their first ever exam! Thank you for your hard work and commitment this term.

To my other pupils - keep rehearsing and hopefully I will see you all in the not too distant future.

Wishing you all a safe, peaceful and enjoyable Christmas break. Focus on all of the wonderful things that you do have and roll on Spring!

Olivia

15/09/2020

Our new normal! See you all soon 🥰

06/07/2020

/// CASTING CALL ///

BBC Studios is looking for KIDS aged 4+ to take part in a non broadcast casting tape from their own home 🧒🏠👧

Is your child chatty, energetic and opinionated? Could your child help grown ups find love? 🖐

For more info 📧 [email protected]

02/07/2020

Congratulations to our Ruby Faloon who found out today that she has won the BBC Two Minute Tales competition. Her story has been made into a beautiful animation. I am so proud of you, Ruby! I’ve never met anyone who works as hard and takes as much pride in their work as you! Well done!

Anna Pickle pulls some pranks to brighten up another lockdown day at home.

19/06/2020

08/06/2020

Parents and pupils, please don’t forget to upload a video performance for the page! 🤗🤗🤗

03/06/2020

Message from Screenworks:

I’m delighted to announce that today we are launching ScreenWorks Online - www.intofilm.org/screenworksonline

Despite the lockdown, we’re keen to continue making young people aware of the many careers that exist in the Northern Ireland screen industries. Starting today, and on every Monday for the next four months, we will be releasing a new video and exercise as part of this new series.

Each video will explore a different job role, hosted by an industry professional. They will explain what their role involves, talk about their career so far, answer some questions set by young people and finally, set an exercise which your students can work on at home. The exercises your students complete can be sent back to us, where the video’s host will provide feedback, which we’ll return.

All of this content is entirely free and is aimed at young people aged 14-19. Since the launch of ScreenWorks in 2019, we’ve had 500 young people involved in our physical programmes, and we hope to engage many more in this new digital form. Over the next 15 weeks, areas we’ll explore include;

Documentary Filmmaking and Pitching

Prosthetic Make-up

Set Design

Story Development

Extras Coordinating

Assistant Directing

Games Design

Story-boarding

VFX and Motion Graphics

Editing

Animation

Week One is now live. It explores Documentary Filmmaking with director Brian Henry Martin and includes an exercise on preparing a pitch for your own documentary short film.

Due to the ongoing COVID-19 situation, we're bringing ScreenWorks online to help young people in Northern Ireland continue learning about careers in the screen industries.

31/05/2020

Hi everyone! I hope you’re all well. This is a long one! Stick with it 🙈🙈

I was really hoping to have updates for you all by now but UWL/LCM (my bosses!) are really dragging their feet re info on what will happen with future examinations. We had requested that materials would be made available online but this hasn’t happened and online/recorded examinations have not been made available for speech exams. It’s very frustrating but I suppose it’s the nature of the current situation. The next season of exams (winter) aren’t guaranteed with so many factors to be considered when organising these. Thank you for your patience with this...it really isn’t easy.

I’m going to propose the following for us:

Continue with exam style work - poetry, drama and prose and have folders of work completed by end of September.

I am finalising the setup of google classroom and these will be organised by grade. Pupils will join the class that correlates with the grade that they study. It’s fairly straightforward to use and resources can be posted directly on to it. I will provide you with passwords but for now it would be wise to set up a gmail account for your child and download the googleclassroom app. I hope to have all passwords by the end of the week. These will be texted to you.

I can’t guarantee that this will be effective and no doubt zoom might need to be introduced but I’d like to think that it might give us a starting point and something to do over the summer in order to keep the skills fresh.

I also can’t guarantee that the current exam content is what will be featured in future exams but we will go with it for now and see what happens.

If any of you have any other suggestions on how to work this please just say. Every little helps.

Keep safe everybody. I’m missing you all

Olivia xx

25/05/2020

Calling all senior students! As a graduate of Lyric Drama Studio, I cannot recommend this course enough. Really high quality learning and superb workshops with the best of the best out there. Apply now to secure your audition!

Applications are now open for this year’s Drama Studio course. The closing date is Friday 14th August 2020. Mary O’Malley, who founded the Lyric Theatre, thought Drama for young people was vital. With no full-time actor training available in NI, Drama Studio has, for 40 years, helped bridge that...

22/05/2020

For any Room on the Broom fans...this is a great primary, cross curricular worksheet pack! Enjoy!

15/05/2020

I can’t tell you enough how lovely it is to see their faces after so long. I can’t believe they’re able to pull these performances out and dust them off without any rehearsal as such. For me, many of these boys and girls have grown up before my very eyes and that sums up this next pupil perfectly. A real treat on a Friday evening. This is Year 9 pupil, Aine O’Neill. Aine reminds me so much of her aunty Mary when she performs. She’s a quiet girl, unassuming and modest but she has the most marvellous vocal control and quality of diction. That’s a skill that takes years to hone and by the time she is grade 7 - vocalising a poem will be so natural for her. Again, she had a challenging Irish author. A favourite of my late father in law’s. W.B. Yeats’ When You Are Old.