Sixth formers at Kirk Hallam Community Academy have created and performed a play to warn fellow students about the dangers of sexting.
Sally White, Chloe Jackson, Frank Redfern, Jessica Wood and Ryan Cumiskey, all 16 and AS-level Drama students, were asked by the academy’s pastoral team to work together on the piece.
The group devised a short play that was performed during assemblies to students in Years 7, 8, 9, 10 and 11 at the academy.
The storyline centred on a female student who messages a naked photo of herself to a male student.
Sally said they decided to each play a different role to show the effect that sexting can have on everyone involved.
She said: “We wanted to create a piece that would tell the story from all of the different viewpoints and show the effect that sexting can have on friends, parents, teachers and students.
“We were asked to do this because students can probably relate more to the story when it’s being told by fellow students.”
Chloe said it was interesting to see the varied reactions from different year groups.
She said: “The older students reacted differently to the younger ones. I think with the Year 7 and 8s it’s more of a warning tale and we had to adapt the play and use appropriate language.
“There may be some older students who have found themselves in this situation and what we didn’t want to make them think was that it’s the end of the world if something like this happens. We wanted to show them that even though it’s a serious matter there is life after something like this.
“We’ve really enjoyed doing it and seeing the reactions, I think in some assemblies students were quite shocked. There’s a possibility that we might be doing some workshops whilst still in role too which would be great.”
Lorna Eames, Drama teacher at Kirk Hallam Community Academy, said she was proud of the students involved.
She said: “The students in the lower years look up to those in Sixth Form as they see them around the school and see them as inspirational, therefore the message is more powerful coming from them. It is an issue that is so important to discuss and has a huge impact on the lives of students today, the aim of this piece of theatre is to play out this fictional story but to stress that this could happen to any of our own students.”