The Oaks Secondary School, Spennymoor
Just wanted to say a massive thank you for working with us for another year! You have been wonderful and have adapted with each class we give you. I cant thank you enough for creating and providing great dance lessons that suit the needs of all our children what ever their ability. We recognise the hard work you put in to making each session interactive and accessible.
Springhead School, Scarborough
It was wonderful once again to see Springhead pupils achieving dance awards. Dance is such an important part of the curriculum, and as a school we are incredibly grateful for the support and generosity that we receive from “We Can Dance” who generously supply us with a professional dance instructor, dance shoes and dance t-shirts.
It was particularly exciting this year as we had Primary, Secondary and 6 th form pupils accessing dance lessons and achieving medals. As the Arts coordinator at Springhead school, I really value the input and the opportunities that “We Can Dance have been able to offer us. Ensuring that our pupils can access exemplary teaching of Arts. Dance is such an important part of the SEN (Special Educational Needs) curriculum. The pupils learn so much and dance covers many subject areas allowing for cross curricular learning for example;
Literacy - Dance is a nonverbal language for imagining, creating, and learning. At the same time, it allows the development on new and unfamiliar language including words from other languages such as
Demi - Half
Plie - Bend
Battement - Beat
Tendu – Stretched
Bras Ba – Arms low
Assemble – Join together
Dance can be used to tell stories and create characters. It is able to demonstrate understanding of emotions and how emotions can be expressed using our bodies.
Social Skills - Dance is wonderful for developing our pupils social relationships including among gender and age groups. Many forms of dance including breakdancing, ballroom, jive and disco are inherently social. They involve moving together in synchrony and empathy, with direct physical contact with another person.
Science - Through Dance our pupils are learning about Forces – using push and pull movements. They are also developing understanding and use of speed, distance, and balance whilst traveling and performing a variety of choreography styles including arm and leg choreography.
PSHE - Through dance our pupils are given opportunities to, develop personal goals and improve their abilities. Especially learning to cooperate and collaborate with their peers. Both as a dance troupe and when dancing with a partner. They are constantly revisiting human anatomy and naming body parts such as, head, eyes, torso, shoulders, leg, arm wrist, toes.
PE and Physical development - Through Dance our pupils are developing their core strength and balance. They are being encouraged to engage in a healthy lifestyle, participate in healthy hobbies and allowing them to increase activity levels and fitness. The lessons We Can Dance provide complements our pupils' individual personal physical targets which can be incorporated into the dance exercises. Movements such as jumping, catching partners, moving down onto the floor and up out of the floor at fast speeds and performing other explosive movements all require a level of muscular strength and power.
Maths - Dancing consists of rhythms, shapes, and patterns. These can all be linked to mathematical concepts such as learning the names of colours. Simply put maths can be taught using Dance. Teaching maths through dancing can help our pupils to understand abstract concepts of maths more joyfully. At the same time listening to music can help our pupils to better recognise patterns and sequences. Improve memory recall and enhance spatial – temporal reasoning.
Space/Shape and Measure - Our pupils learn to form shapes with their body, as they move their arms and legs. As well as making shapes with their formations, as groups of dancers travel around the stage. Whilst developing new languages of shapes such as triangle, diamond, star. Our pupils are given opportunities to practice movement in diverse ways that allows them to experience space visually and physically in a 3-dimensional way. Examples of different space concepts include size of our dancer’s shape or movement (small/large) or pathways of a dancer’s movement (straight/zigzag/curved). When our pupils are practising making a shape line or turning, they are learning about mathematical language and developing knowledge and practical understanding of basic angles right, acute and obtuse angles. They are also developing understanding of positional language such as sideways, diagonally, high, low, forwards, backwards, upwards, downwards, small step, large step, sideways step, shuffle, on the spot and travelling such as half turns, quarter turn. The list of new language being developed and understood is endless. Our pupils have opportunity to practice movement in a variety of ways that allows them to experience space visually and physically in a 3-dimensional way. Example of different space concepts include the size of our pupil’s shape or movement (small/large) or pathways of their movement for example straight, zigzag, or curved.
Number - Our pupils can practice counting and visualizing numbers in more complex and engaging ways. When dancing our pupils, learn that each person keeps track of their own counts. They learn about how many beats there are, how many times do they repeat movements within a sequence of movements. There is repetition of counting out steps and sequences which mean they are constantly revisiting the understanding of number and memory recall of number in a practical/ concrete way.
History - In our Dance lessons we learn about the origins of dance and different dance styles. Our pupils are encouraged to explore popular dances throughout the ages. Whilst also learning about diverse cultural forms of dance and music in a very sensory and physical way.
So it’s a big thankyou from me and our pupils to the We Can Dance Charity as you are teaching us an abundance of new skills and supporting our whole curriculum learning.