Courses on Dreaming Spires
I also wanted to say thank you again, this (Creative Theatre) has been one of my favourite Dreaming Spires courses, it was so amazing. I learnt a lot and it was just fun being in class each week, so thank you. It also helped me with my a level choices, so thanks for that as well! :) AD June 2023
Creative Theatre Studies
Aims of the Course
We will study an assortment of different performance texts representing a range of social, historical and cultural contexts to enhance students’ understanding of theatrical form traditional realism to Broadway theatre of the 1940s/50s, and more innovative work from the the present day.
The course will be divided into six areas: thus taking us on a journey of development from the Belle Époque to the present. The study includes writers such as Ibsen, Priestly; Arthur Miller; tom Stoppard and Carol Churchill.
Through both the texts and online theatre productions we will examine how plays were originally performed, and students will be given the chance to study and respond creatively to their experiences.
Aims of the Course
The course has two aims; the first is to study an assortment of different performance texts representing a range of social, historical and cultural contexts to enhance students’ understanding of theatrical form traditional realism to Broadway theatre of the 1940s/50s, to more innovative work from thel the present day.
The second is to explore the plays creatively. We will write a melodrama, design sets and costumes, consider lighting and sound, perform a voice version of A Christmas Carol, and develop plots, characters and our own radio play by drawing on what we have learnt from the writing we have studied.
Homework Expectations
Students will attend a one-hour webinar, where they will type in the chat box. They will be asked to read manageable sections of the texts of the plays over the course of a few weeks. Through class discussion and homework, they will be given the opportunity to:
Reinterpret an extract from a text to develop and demonstrate their creative abilities.
Understand theatres at work, about sound, set, lighting, thinking and designing their own.
Delve into the craft of playmaking, set and costume design and production
Discover elements of the performance
And develop ways of Talking about Theatre: The Critical Audience
Throughout the year, students will be encouraged to collaborate with readings and bring their interpretations to the lessons.
How It Supports Your Child's Education
For UK students and others doing UK-style IGCSE exams, this unit will introduce them to many of the main works studied at exam level. These skills are relevant to many IGCSE English Literature exams in the UK, anyone studying Drama
Duration: 30 weeks
Fees : £410 each course
Short Stories and Novellas
Aims of the Course
The main aims of this course are to introduce students to short stories from a wide range of authors, from classics from Somerset Maugham, O Henry, Bierce, and DH Lawrence, to modern authors such as Bradbury, Helen Dunmore, Kazuo Ishiguro and Penelope Lively to name a few.
Short stories offer a bite size way of exploring a marvellous range of genre and classic authors. They are engaging, offering an open door to highly crafted texts, so students can jump right into the nuts and bolts of great literature and develop valuable skills in close reading before they are asked to perform close readings in the (much larger) space of a novel. Their length is great for building confidence. Short stories are also great family reads.
The length of the works means lessons can be scaffolded to support students with specific learning needs, or those who find longer text overwhelming at this stage. They are short enough to encourage re-reading and mastery of the text.
Homework Expectations
The homework each week is to read one short story, or manageable section of a longer story. From this they will write a short summary, answer one discussion question based on a selected passage, and attend a one-hour webinar where, mostly, the tutor talks on the mic and students type in the chatbox. Twice a year, they will be assigned presentations to take over some of the teaching.
Add-On Options
For the add-on writing extension, students have an additional 1/2-hour webinar and generally an extra 2 hours per week on homework as we focus on building reading and writing skills for a solid foundation in English language and literature study. It makes use of the texts we read in the main course, and offers specific introductions to many forms of transactional writing. These include how to identify key facts for summary writing as well as choices one makes to produce journals, reports, interviews, magazine articles, and descriptive writing - all are types of texts that can be found on the Cambridge IGCSE while being quite sensible writing styles for everyday living, too.
How It Supports Your Child's Education
Particularly useful for those under 13 or those who may need extra support in their learning journey. It will create invaluable foundations in mature reading skills, critical thinking, and written expression whether a student is following a UK or US pathway for their education.
Duration: 30 weeks
Fees : £410 each course
Add on: £175
History of Art: The Power of Looking: Painting
Aims of the Course
Dreaming Spires Art History courses are designed as introductions to the visual arts. Although they are designated Art History: Painting and Art History: Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture, they do not have to be taken in a particular order.
In this course, History of Art: The Power of Looking: Painting, we introduce painters, their historical period, and their techniques so that students collect a variety of ways of seeing, and with these tools, they are able to feel at home in any museum in the world.
Based on Charlotte Mason's ideas on "picture study," this course will take you into the detail of each painter and painting every week, so that over time, you will have a good feel for the progression of artists, artistic ideas and styles throughout history.
Visual intelligence is a key skill in a world full of pictorial information. Having a keen sense of the visual world enables students to become discerning, sharpening their skills of assessment, analysis and articulation.
Increasingly, these skills are linked to and sought out in the sciences, medical professionals, in law and for criminal investigators, as well as more traditional roles such as architecture, fine arts and graphics.
How It Works
Each week in the live webinar, Jenny will focus on an artist and a relevant topic. Homework will be based on personal response as well as being able to articulate and apply the tools that are being covered. Any additional reading, such as the occasional foray into Gombrich's Story of Art, will be supplied via a free link online.
The course is suitable for students from the age of 11+, although there may be some examples of older works with mild nudity in the context of mythology.
Homework Expectations
Homework will include some set reading, watching specified research materials, and writing a response or recreative response, a short discussion question, and termly short projects including the choice of a fine art experimentation. The tasks are conceived with a good dash of fun, are moderate in length and engaging.
How It Supports Your Child's Education
In general, Art History is a fantastic addition to any teen's studies, not just from the artistic and cultural standpoint, but for teaching the skills of observation. So important is this aspect of a student's toolkit that medical schools in the US are requiring it as part of their trainee doctors' studies, so our courses go well with anyone whether their ambitions are in humanities or sciences.
How It Supports Your Child's Education
UK students, this course would be a useful adjunct for anyone studying Art GCSE who will need to complete art research, and serve as a solid foundation for those to those who want to do A-level Art History or Fine Art in the future.
Duration: 30 weeks
Fees : £410 each course
History of Art: The Power of Looking Widely: Painting, Sculpture and Architecture
Aims of the Course
Dreaming Spires Art Appreciation courses are designed as introductions to the visual arts. Although they are designated History of Art: Paintings and this course, History of Art: Paintings, Sculpture, and Architcture, they do not have to be taken in a particular order.
This course, "The Power of Looking Widely: Painting, Sculpture and Architecture," will look at a broad range of art and artists from painting to sculpture to architecture, and how the subject area of Art Appreciation and Art History are about fun, curiosity and exploration, fulfilling ways in which to learn about the world.
In a supportive and encouraging environment we will ask questions and explore topics such as what links the Parthenon, the present day and patronage? Why are the equestrian statues of Marcus Aurelius and the San Marco horses an inspiration to a modern day bronze of a riderless horse in the green and pleasant quad of Jesus College Cambridge? And what did Delacroix see in French peasant women and the ancient statues of the Goddess Nike to give us one our the greatest and enduring images of Liberty?
Exploring these works thematically, students will see how they resonate in their own lives and will gain the power to read the visual world through a history of artistic and social connectivity that linked different ages before long before the world was mediated through communications systems.
This course explores some of the most famous works of art, sculpture and architecture through a thematic lens, rather than chronology. In our open and receptive classes, we will range over time and topics, comparing some of the most inspiring works and looking at interesting ways to read modern interpretations of age old themes.
How It Works
We will start by collecting items of formal analysis for our "toolbox" and then, through active learning approaches, look at and compare art over time by genre and subject, form and function, historical and social context, patronage and the status of the artist, and finally, through ideas of nationality and identity.
During the course, students will feel empowered to express themselves confidently about the visual work around them using a variety of responses, from the familiar narrative tasks, to recreative and longer projects so discovering hidden talents and visual capabilities and Art History’s "exorbitant stockpiles of experience and information" (David Joselit).
Each week in the live webinar, Jenny will focus on a relevant topic. Homework will be based on personal response as well as being able to articulate and apply the tools that are being covered. Any additional reading will be supplied via a free link online.
Homework Expectations
Homework will include some set reading, watching specified research materials, and writing a response or recreative response, a short discussion question, and termly short projects. The tasks are conceived with a good dash of fun, are moderate in length, engaging, develop vocabulary, structured writing.
How It Supports Your Child's Education
In general, Art History is a fantastic addition to any teen's studies, not just from the artistic and cultural standpoint, but for teaching the skills of observation. So important is this aspect of a student's toolkit that medical schools in the US are requiring it as part of their trainee doctors' studies, so our courses go well with anyone whether their ambitions are in humanities or sciences.
For UK students, this course would be a useful adjunct for anyone studying Art GCSE who will need to complete art research, and serve as a solid foundation for those to those who want to do A-level Art History or Fine Art in the future.
Duration: 30 weeks
Fees : £410 each course