Lincoln Academy of Learning & Teaching

This project was established as an inter-school initiative to demonstrate and promote the talents of both Law and Drama students. It sought to give both student groups valuable employment and skill enhancing experiences that would boost their CVs, as well as provide them with an opportunity to develop their knowledge.  

Drama students often have difficulty in getting paid opportunities to practice their acting skills outside their programme of study. In a similar vein, Law students benefit from role-play opportunities which support them to develop their specialist legal skills through building confidence and expertise in how they approach client handling and engagement. Funding from the College of Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities Teaching & Learning Innovation Fund 2023/24 enabled the Law School to pay Drama students to role play clients seeking family mediation in relation to conflicts on marital separation over children and finances. 

The Law students worked in groups with Drama student playing the roles of clients. Over four sessions of 2 hours the students worked their way through the conflicts presented by the client actors to explore mediation processes and reach solutions to the personal issues that each case study presented to them. Sessions were guided by an outline structure and introduction to the technique of a family mediation, facilitated by the Project Lead (Louise McKeon-Stuart) who is a Solicitor and Family Mediator, and supported by the Module Co-ordinator of the Family Law Module. All students involved in the session activities worked very hard (regardless of the role they were playing) which made their overall engagement in each activity very successful.  

Eight Drama students were selected for the role play scenarios, however the opportunity to audition for the roles was open to all first- and second-year Drama students, giving everyone the opportunity to gain valuable experience in auditioning for a professional role, a key skill to build for all those looking to pursue an acting career.  

The following key words and phrases were drawn from the end of course evaluation that students used to describe their experience of this activity: communication – confidence – negotiation – active listening – emotional management – financial management – ability to be impartial – creative thinking in difficult situations – transferable skills – scary – challenging.