Performing Arts - BTEC National Extended Diploma

Applications Open: 3rd November 2025

Applications Close: 1st September 2026

Entry Requirements: Please see courses for more information

How to Apply: Via Kent Choices website

This course is equivalent to three A Levels, so would therefore be all of your three choices of subjects in sixth form.

This qualification stimulates your creativity and helps to understand emotion, as well as build on skills and techniques required for any career. We build communication and confidence skills through three different disciplines of dancing, singing and acting.

We tailor the course each year depending on cohort, to allow our students to achieve their best, so they can strive to complete the course with the highest grade achievable for them individually. They will learn to work in groups and individually to build independence and team work.

It develops your resilience, overcoming barriers in a safe environment, and your ability to understand, interpret and evaluate the world around you. It challenges your preconceptions about the world in which you live. It develops your aesthetic sense, your language and communication skills, and it introduces new ideas to you and allows you to express opinions.

Unit 1: Investigating Practitioners’ Work

Unit 2: Developing Skills for Live Performance

Unit 3: Group Performance Workshop

Unit 4: Performing Arts in the Community

Unit 5: Individual Performance Commission

Unit 6: Final Live Performance to an Audience

Unit 7: Employment Opportunities in the Performing Arts Unit 20: Developing the Voice for Performance

Unit 22: Movement in Performance

Unit 24: Children’s Theatre Performance

Unit 25: Site Specific Performance

Unit 27: Musical Theatre Techniques

Unit 28: Variety Performance

Evidence for assessments will be provided in a number of ways including public performances, classroom rehearsals, written reflections and research papers.

Unit 1 is a written exam in which students have months to prepare notes, that they are able to bring into the exam to support.

At least 4 GCSEs grade 4 or above, including a minimum of either BTEC PA Pass success in a Key Stage 4 course such as GCSE Music, GCSE Drama or Level 2 BTEC in Performing Arts.

You will be given the opportunity to meet and work with professional practitioners working in the Performing Arts Industry. These practitioners will not just teach you material for your assessment, but they will give you key advice and guidance on what it is like to work in the industry, advise what skills are important to develop and share their experiences with you. You will be provided with opportunities to perform in a variety of styles of performance at multiple venues.