The lecture today began with discussing the importance of creative partnerships within schools and how they contribute to developing a better understanding of integrated arts. Creative partnerships are described as creating strong partnerships with a range of organisations helps to deliver a more personalised learning experience for every child and young person. Furthermore, it is vitally important that parents/carers have the option to become more involved. This is beneficial as parents become more involved in all decisions affecting their child’s education and learning. Their support can play a vital role at all stages of education.
Activities that encompass creative partnerships can help to support the children who struggle with attainment, social interaction and behaviour issues.
The practical session today was our last dance input of this module. It was laid out as if we were about to perform in front of an audience as you would with children. We practised all of our dance routines and started off with our warm-up. It is important when teaching children about dance that we first warm-up our bodies to avoid injuries. This session was when we brought each groups individual routines together with the routine we learned as a class. Throughout the weeks, we always referred back to dance being creative which was outlined to us by Cone (2009). It is essential that the idea of the dance should always remain the child’s’. Creative dance should be fun, safe, meaningful and most importantly, child led.
“one of the most powerful experiences dance educators can offer children is the opportunity to create a dance that reflects their ideas” (Cone, 2009, n.p)
Below is the clip of my own class performing the routine.
http://moodle.uws.ac.uk/mod/page/view.php?id=693887
Dance is an aspect of Expressive Arts which is a crucial way of representing creativity due to its freedom of movement but also has several health benefits linked to it such as the ability to aid fine motor skills, provides children with daily exercise which they might not get at home and can bring a class together socially through partner work. This all contributes to the development of the individual learner.
References
- Purcell Cone, T. (2009) ‘Following Their Lead: Supporting Children’s Ideas for Creating Dances’. Journal of Dance Education. Vol. 9:3, pp. 81-89.
