ABSTRACT
The mixed comprehensive school, on the fringes of a Midlands city, stands in pleasant suburbs, but draws on a predominantly working-class area. The majority of its 1,300 pupils come from a large council estate nearby. Six per cent are immigrants. Drama, like all subjects, is taught in ability bands up to the end of the fifth year, but no examination in the subject is offered. The drama department is staffed by two teachers, one of whom had, at the time of the project, just returned to teaching after a nine-year break. Each teacher agreed to monitor her work with a group of thirty fourth-year pupils, although neither had previously been engaged in a research project that involved any form of self-monitoring. At the beginning of the term each group had only one forty-minute lesson a week. This proved inadequate for the project, so each group was timetabled for a further period and the teachers given time after the lessons to write up notes and discuss their work together.
