Following the dance workshop, I feel my understanding of dance within schools has been deepened. I had very little of knowledge of how dance links into the curriculum as in my experience dance was always outside of school, the workshop has made me realise how I can use dance to aid my teaching.
The workshop helped me realise how helpful non-verbal communication can be for pupils within a class, getting to move with the class and be in a non-traditional classroom setting allows you to become more comfortable with those in your class, just like we did in the workshop.
Dance helps the children to get rid of the awkwardness they may feel in a new class or if they don’t know many others in the class, but in a fun and subtle way. After doing some reading on dance activities I was also surprised to find how easy it was to use dance across the curriculum to aid other subjects. Such as using dance to help the children understand other cultures traditions.
I also found that dance can be the best way for children to express themselves if they aren’t comfortable using words. Doing exercises that allow children to display different emotions can be a great way for many of the children to blow off steam or even help deepen their understanding of how they are feeling.
Expressive arts within the curriculum is something that I think is commonly overlooked which in my opinion is a big mistake as we are moving into a new less traditional way of teaching and the expressive arts will be a huge aid in bridging the gap to these new methods.
