What does a secondary school drama teacher do?

This week I chat with Kat Morris, a secondary school drama teacher. We talk about her journey into teaching, why she chose not to study for a PGCE and how she landed her job. Kat shares what makes her role so rewarding and takes us through a typical day in the classroom

Participants

• Emily Slade - podcast producer and host, Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵ»ÆƬ
• Kat Morris - secondary school drama teacher

Transcript

Kat Morris: Even if you know that you want to be a teacher, and that's all you need, you've always known. I'd say it's worth taking a couple of years to just sit on the idea before going into it straight from university.

Emily Slade: Hello and welcome back to Future You. The podcast brought to you by graduate careers experts, Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵ»ÆƬ. I'm your host, Emily Slade, and in this episode we discuss what it's like being a secondary school drama teacher.

Kat Morris: I am Kat Morris and I am a teacher of drama at a senior school in Reading and I teach drama from Year 7 all the way up to sixth form. So that's 11-year-olds, to 17-year-olds.

Emily Slade: Oh, that's a wide spectrum. So what did your educational journey look like?

Kat Morris: And so I went to a school not dissimilar to the one that I work at now, and all girls school in Windsor. I loved school, I think that's one of the reasons why I went back into school into teaching is because I really, really love had a great time at school and then from sixth form I went straight into, got my A-levels and went straight to university. I went to the University of Kent. And I studied drama and theatre for four years. And then I thought I wanted to go straight into teaching. And I went to go and do a PGCE but. I during that process sort of decided that I needed a little bit more time and. I. Sort of ready to become a teacher. So I took a few years of doing other bits and pieces. I worked in retail. And fitness industry. And then I finally came back to. To teaching and I didn't go through the normal. In inverted commas. Way of doing it I went in a bit of a weird way round.

Emily Slade: So what was the weird way?

Kat Morris: Okay, so I instead of doing a PGCE. I decided that I wanted to apply for a school and just see what it was like working in a school, maybe not as a teacher first and a job at the school I'm currently at now came up and it was sort of an admin role in the drama department. It was really, really lucky to have come up at the right time. Because I wasn't really suited for it in times I was quite overqualified for it. As I, you know, I've been. I've studied drama at university. It was more like a gap year job really for. Students may be between A levels and university I applied for anyway and I got the job and I was doing sort of assisting with extracurricular and curricular stuff at the school and then I got a little bit like itchy feet. And I wanted to do something. I wanted to start teaching and I asked the I literally just asked my head of department and went can I do some teaching, and they were like, yeah, you can do some teaching at Key Stage 3 where the. You know, there's less is, you know, less to do and less risk. So I started teaching year 7 and 8 and a bit of year 9 as well, I think. And yeah, and then I and then I started on a qualification, it’s like a special route called the assessment only route, which basically is you kind of bypass a lot of PGCE stuff and you do the kind of minimum whilst you're working and it means you can earn money and also get a qualification.

Emily Slade: So was the plan. It sounds like the plan was always to end up teaching. Was the plan to end up teaching, specifically drama?

Kat Morris: I think so. I mean with teaching in. A private school, at least. You're sort of bound by your degree and your previous training. So, I mean, I would love to teach art. I'd like to maybe try my hands at P.E. because I have knowledge. But I don't think this particular school would be the place for that to happen where it's a bit more specific to your training, but that that said, I know that pretty much most other schools have, you know, a teacher as a teacher. And but I do really. I mean, it's the subject that I trained in and I love the most so. It would definitely always be my focus subject. It would be nice to maybe do some other bits and pieces, but I would.

Emily Slade: So, what's the most rewarding aspect of teaching drama.

Kat Morris: Just seeing the development from because as I say, is teach from year 7 to year 13 so. And most, not most students, but a lot of students stay the whole time the whole way through. Through and I will often teach them. Maybe not the whole way through, but I would have taught them when they were younger and so for example, the year 7’s that I started with are now in year 12. And it's really weird. And I and it's great. And you just see, I mean you that in any subject. But it's just like there's something about it in drama that's really special, because I think it's because of the relationship is slightly different between a drama teacher and a student where it's a bit more personal. There's a little bit more like the barriers are broken down a little bit more.

Emily Slade: Yeah.

Kat Morris: So yeah, and it the way that your relationship changes over time is really interesting and it's just great to see them develop into really talented performers.

Emily Slade: Yeah, I imagine it's quite, you know, the space of drama is a much different space to any other formal classroom. You get to let your hair down a bit. More, as you say, those barriers are broken a bit more, so you almost see a different side of these students and they get to express a different side of themselves.

Kat Morris: Well, yeah, yeah, definitely.

Emily Slade: That's awesome. That's crazy to be with them, as you say, that's a general teacher thing of being with them from a very young age to a much older age and to see them grow, and that must be so rewarding. That's crazy.

Kat Morris: Then you're with them so much like you. You know, it's the amount of hours that you're with them, you know, throughout a year is incredible. I feel like I don't need kids, I have hundreds of them.

Emily Slade: Thousands of them. So what does the typical day in your life as a drama teacher look like, both in and out of the classroom?

Kat Morris: My timetable is pretty, pretty nice this year. It changes each year but generally speaking. I'll arrive in the morning and try desperately to get myself together and sort my stuff out, and it's not that. There's never very much time. That is like a a key theme, running through teaching generally is that you always feel like you are sort of keeping your. Keeping your head above the water and sometimes only just about and at other times comfortably so. But the water level never really goes below your shoulders, I'd say until the holidays where and then you get these nice big long breaks. But during tan time it's very it's a lot but. Yeah, I'll. I'll come in the morning and get myself together. I'm a tutor as well, and I form tutor for year 7. So that's the first thing I do. Go and register my tutor group and we have assembly, or we have loads of other stuff to do. You know, there's all kinds of stuff going on at the school all the time. Very, very busy. And then I'm into my teaching day on a heavy day, I'll teach. For most of the day between 9am and 3.45pm. But I'm pretty lucky in that my timetable isn't super heavy. So yeah, I can have any combination of of of lessons. So I could go from a year 13 double to a year 7. With like a break between a 15 minutes. So it's having to switch. I think that's one of the things that the skills that you develop very quickly as being able to switch your brain into different modes of like. The content and also just the the way that you are with. Students, but yeah. Every single day I get home and I feel. Very satisfied, but also very tired.

Emily Slade: I was going to say it sounds sort of mentally draining if that constant switching and preparing and being on top of things and then are you also physically walking around the school, taking yourself to different classrooms.

Kat Morris: Oh, yeah, like I've got my watch on so I'll do my step count, and I think I clock up about 7 kilometres a day, just like running around school. And some days are worse than others, but generally speaking, yes. It's about. It's a lot like it's a lot of movement and even within the classrooms, well, especially with drama like I'm standing up, I'm showing them stuff. I'm demoing stuff. I'm walking around the classroom checking that they know what they're doing. So, movement wise, yeah, physical and mental energy. It's very demanding, but then that's why the days are relatively compact, you know we're working from. We're actually properly working from 8.30am till 3.45pm, and then we've, you know, got stuff after school sometimes as well. But there's fairly compact days. And then we get these long holidays. And you know, the private school holidays are absolutely nuts.

Emily Slade: Yeah.

Kat Morris: They just go on and on and that really does allow you to reset. So it's not too bad.

Emily Slade: So, there's not too much demanding admin paperwork during the holiday time?

Kat Morris: Yeah, I mean like, it depends again, certain subjects, I mean drama, there's less marking, et cetera. But you know just it just depends. We do have a lot of things to keep on top of things like parents, evenings and report writing and the marking that we do. Kind of always comes all at once. And yeah, you do need to use some of the holiday to catch up and the sort of the beginning and the end. The holidays with like maybe three days, four days of work. But we're talking, you know, I get three weeks at Christmas and three weeks at Easter, and you know, three weeks is long enough to do a couple of days at the beginning and a couple of days at the end and not really feel. Impacted too much, so yeah, no, it's fine, it works, it works. It's really great having that time. Yeah, definitely. And just during the day as well, even during your breaks and your lunch hour, are you still?

Emily Slade: Yeah. Having to be active and available to students if they needed like personal. Or advice or they come? To you with a task or something?

Kat Morris: Yeah, yeah, definitely. And I think drama teachers are definitely get, like, accosted more frequently because we have that relationship that we have with the students. They are constantly in the drama, the drama department like. Just I don't know, doing sometimes doing absolutely nothing and we have to tell them to go away. But it's often like rehearsing or doing rehearsing for stuff outside of school as well. Rehearsing for, like, various auditions for drama schools or like National Youth Theatre. Or, you know, they're looking for advice on stuff. Yeah, it's. Being available constantly, definitely, but it doesn't necessarily mean that you're you're required. So I do feel like I balance my week is quite nicely balanced and I do get I can hideaway and just have some time, especially at lunch like. I I get at least half an hour to myself, which is nice.

Emily Slade: Yeah. Brilliant. To stay on the subject of balance, how do you balance the creative and logistical aspects of your job? You've mentioned the paperwork aspects that you have to get done, and then also you've got organising school productions, preparing lessons, being a coach for the students, that sort of thing. So how do you balance all of that?

Kat Morris: I think that your answer is like no one does really very well. Like I think the biggest lesson that I learned from teaching is that you have to become okay with. Not being. Like, great, all the time. Everything. That you have to let go of any kind of perfectionism or anything like that, because you're not going to be able to nail absolutely everything. So one of the things that I don't like about it because I tend towards that way of being. And so I've have found that transition to becoming less. Getting everything right. Quite challenging, but that said, I think it has made me a more rounded person overall. But yeah, I think balancing those two sides of your brain almost. But like the creator side and then the more like kind of logistical side. It's very, very it's very difficult and I think certain subjects have it a bit easier because their subject may be more like. Similar to all of that stuff, that makes sense today. They have less crude, they have less, they have less. Creativity. Woven into the subject, but yeah, with drama, it's like this is a very stark contrast. Yeah, it's just being OK with it. Being mediocre is sometimes the only way and just trying to just trying to make it as good as good as possible and trying to balance it as well as well as you can. And just trying to tick things off. That is key. Just trying to get through that that to-do list sometimes is the best thing you can do and not worry too much about the detail.

Emily Slade: Yeah, definitely. So that certainly sounds like some of the biggest challenges. Are there any other challenges that you face?

Kat Morris: I think I mean definitely like you are working with the students immediately, but they are all connected to parents and you are constantly trying to. The parents are the ones that. Are choosing to send their. The children to the school and as I say, because we're a private school, we are also in the position that we're the dealing with kind of a customer, a customer kind of situation. And that does complicate things. So I think one of the hardest things is. Yeah. Making sure that you are doing what's best for. The student doing what's best for the parent and doing what's best for you, and sometimes all of those things don't really align. Sometimes it's they. They often don't align and so that's really that's really tough. Just dealing with parents generally can be quite challenging because. They not that they are challenging even, but they're just that. Their interaction is difficult because you're both talking about this thing that you. A lot about. And sometimes you can disagree on things. That's often the interaction that you have. It's like no news is good news.

Emily Slade: Yeah.

Kat Morris: And then there's like when something's wrong, that's when you'll have those interactions. So definitely that's definitely a difficult thing. And I think teachers, all teachers, find dealing with parents. Whether they are easy to deal with or difficult to deal with. Is it's hard thing to do.

Emily Slade: Yeah, 100% off the back of that is disciplining students quite challenging because I'm sure nobody wants to, but I'm sure you'll put in positions where you have to.

Kat Morris: Yeah, yeah. I actually really struggle a lot with that. And I think it's coming from. You know. I don't know. It's it's. I just don't ever feel like. It's helpful and that is something that I've had to really learn how to do and get better at because obviously it is very helpful and I think it's because my idea of discipline was wrong and really it's just about making sure that the boundaries are clear. At all times and there's no there's never any need, in my opinion, to kind of shout or become angry. It's just a constant kind of reminding. And since I've become better at understanding how I do it personally, because I think everyone does it differently. And that's another good thing to remember about lots of aspects of teaching. But yeah, I have found that difficult because I don't I never, ever want to be the bad guy. And I never ever want to upset a child, but you sort of just. You have to sometimes and it's a really difficult situation and then in doing so you often upset the parent as well. So, it's very, very difficult to balance everything and yeah, be confident. I think the confidence to be to discipline is takes quite a lot.

Emily Slade: 100 percent. So, what advice do you have for those looking to become a secondary school teacher?

Kat Morris: I'd say if you do need to. Even if you know that you want to be a teacher, and that's all you, you know you've always known. I'd say it's worth taking a couple of years to just sit on the idea before going into it straight from university, especially if you're going to go and do a PGCE because whilst it's good to kind of continue the momentum of you know you do your BA and then you do your masters of PGCE and you just go straight through. It does kind of make sense in time wise, but it I don't know if it always makes sense. Experience life experience wise. Yeah, I think it's. I really retrospectively pleased with the fact that I did that, that I took, you know, however many years, I think it was like three or four years. Of just going like. Doing other stuff and it also gives you perspective on things like the amount of holiday that we get. And you know how difficult. This job is compared to other jobs, but then how rewarding this job is compared to other jobs? One thing that I always say to people. Like the. The biggest difference between teaching like this job that I have now and previous jobs I've had in retail and in the fitness industry and whatever else, is that when I look at the clock at school, I panic because they don't have enough time to do stuff. Rather than thinking, oh my God, how that's how long I have until I can go home. I never think that at school like, not once have I gone and looked at the clock and thought, oh God, there's this much time left. Because you've just got so much to do and you are. But it's like, you know, it's sometimes overwhelming, but definitely most of the time manageable. But you're you're so engaged and you're. So you're so invested as well that you never ever think about time in that same way. And I think that is. Truly more rewarding, like, you know, surely that that means that you're you're getting more from. From the thing that you're doing with most of your life ultimately work. It's like much of your life, so I think not, not willing away. The time is like a really big thing, yeah.

Emily Slade: Yeah. And what advice for those looking to specifically get into drama teaching?

Kat Morris: I think it's very difficult because it's quite competitive, so I think again and that another thing that goes. It's in like the positives of taking a little bit of time is waiting for that right job to come up and all of the jobs are advertised. Most of the jobs in the UK anywhere are advertised and I think overseas actually as well are advertised on tests and you can find all the jobs around. On there, all different subjects, all different kinds of of jobs within education and. Yeah, I think that. Having a degree in the subject is very you know, it's really, really good, especially if you want to teach at a in a in the private sector. But it's mainly just jumping on. Any jobs that come up and I. Like all drama departments in all schools. Are. Really, like even if the school is sort of other parts of the school aren't particularly. You know, like they're not thriving often. The drama department is, so it's worth just going in for anything and throwing yourself in and just, you know, going for a couple of times and seeing how it goes. I didn't do my PGCE, so I wouldn't say that that was necessary depends on where you're trying to get into. What kinds of schools you're trying to get into? But it's kind of the main thing is ear to the ground and having that degree in the subject, in drama or theatre or something that's somewhat close to the subject.

Emily Slade: Yeah. Fantastic. That's brilliant. Thank you so much for your time.

Kat Morris: Cool, no worries.

Emily Slade: Thanks again to Kat for their time. Head to Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵ»ÆƬ.ac.uk for more information on becoming a secondary school teacher or to learn more about what to do with a drama degree. All links are in the show notes below. If you enjoyed the episode, feel free to leave us a review on Apple or Spotify. Thank you, as always for listening and good luck on your journey to future you.

Notes on transcript

This transcript was produced using a combination of automated software and human transcribers and may contain errors. The audio version is definitive and should be checked before quoting.

Find out more

• Learn more about being a secondary school teacher.
• What can I do with a degree in drama?
• Search postgraduate courses in drama teaching.
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