Category Archives: Contemporary issues

Why do we need to be qualified to teach dance in primary schools?

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I found that this was the first question in my mind when I saw our dance workshop early on in a Friday morning. I never would have thought that as a Primary Teacher, this would be a requirement as part of the curriculum. I do not particularly look back fondly upon the many hours of mandatory social dance throughout my secondary and primary school careers but as a teacher, I can try to make a difference to the attitude to social dance and maybe make it slightly more enjoyable for the children being taught by me. I feel like I fully understand the need for enthusiasm when teaching any subject, especially for those that the teacher may not like themselves because pupils can be impressionable and will pick up when a teacher does not like the subject they are teaching.

Image of dance workshop in school

Therefore why do we need to be qualified to teach dance in primary schools? Well, after looking up the subject, I now understand why it should be included in our curriculum. Here are a few reasons:

Dance can link to other parts of the curriculum

Dance is seen as fun even by the least enthusiastic of pupils, and if you provide a lesson plan which links to the current class project as either an introduction to a new topic or reinforcement of the things that are being learned in class, you may in turn be able to increase enthusiasm for the project and dance itself.

It is a simple way of getting children to expend energy outside the classroom

This seems a simple reason to teach dance but it is an effective way of ensuring that children have burned off energy before they sit down in your classroom and take part in a lesson.

Dance encourage pupils to be creative

Instead of expressing themselves through the standard approach of writing, children are encouraged to be creative and show how they feel through body language and movement. Ken Robinson displays the view that schools squander creativity and I feel that dance is a way of bringing the creative element in to schools.

Dance provides a good team building exercise

Dance can be a form of collaborative learning, and some forms of dance can easily be used as team-building exercises. Group dancing also allows you to see which kids are possibly being left out so you can target your teaching more effectively and provide support for that pupil and help them to become more involved and part of the team.

A Teacher’s Presence on Social Media

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In a world that is so wired in to social media, for a teacher, it could be difficult to maintain a professional front. In a way, all professionals have to keep an element of professionalism in their social media, but most of their problems can be solved through setting their accounts as private before heading in for a job interview so their prospective employer does not get to see any of the embarrassing or inappropriate content that could potentially lay therein.

For a teacher, they could be under constant pupil scrutiny online whilst remaining blissfully unaware of this fact. As soon as a child finds out the teacher’s first name, there is the potential that they could locate one of the teacher’s accounts whether it be on Facebook, Twitter or any other social media site. This puts the teacher’s career at risk due to the fact that their social life should never really cross into their professional life. Whilst reading the GTCS code relating to social media, I discovered that they frequently use the phrase “fit to teach”. The GTCS state that, “Maintaining the public’s trust in the individual teacher and in teaching as a profession sits at the heart of being fit to teach, and this can be undermined not only by behaviour occurring in a teacher’s professional life, but also within their private life, including activity online.” (GTCS Professional Guidance on the Use of Electronic Communication and Social Media). The phrase “fit to teach”, whilst seeming reasonably subjective, is held by the GTCS as an ethical standard by which all teachers must adhern to. It seems obvious that a teacher must be fit for their profession but the GTCS determine whether they are by putting a teacher in front of a panel to see whether they have let the two sides of their life cross over in an inappropriate way. In their code, the GTCS say that another thing which is central to this concept of fitness to teach is “sound judgement and due care” on the teacher’s part as to what they post online. I believe that the carefulness in the way you frame yourself in the classroom which is integral to professional conduct should automatically transfer over onto what you post online.

There are many obvious things that have resulted in disciplinary measures before according to the GTCS, for example, sending inappropriate messages to a pupil to try to establish a relationship with them and sending indecent images. However, there is certain actions that could be taken by a teacher accidentally online that can result in punishment from the GTCS, like “using inappropriate YouTube content in the educational setting”. This famously happened to a primary teacher in Dundee when they clicked on a Mr Men video on YouTube which was at the top of the search list believing that this was the preset video for that lesson. It turned out to be a more inappropriate video that showed extremely graphic images which frightened the pupils. This was supposedly an innocent mistake and it goes to show how easy it is for a teacher to slip up with access to thousands of videos on YouTube which can often have misleading thumbnails.

However, there are also many opportunities afforded to teachers by social media. Careful use of YouTube allows teachers to make their lessons more stimulating and can enhance potentially boring subject matter for young children. Social media could be used as a platform to keep parents up to date on their child’s learning in between the traditional parent’s nights. Facebook and twitter can also be used as an outlet to share educational ideas and to arrange meetings with other teachers to share lesson plans and there have been various websites set up to do this.

In conclusion, as long as social media is used carefully and responsibly by educators, I believe it can enhance primary education greatly. However, it is easy for an educator to be caught out with their social media account being public especially for those that do not fully understand the internet.

How did your gender affect you as a child?

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Gender affects everyone as a child in a way; you are born into a society which has certain preconceptions about the way you should behave. As a child developing in primary school, I recognised that some of the female teachers seemed to favour the pupils of the same sex. One incident stays with me that was an example of this, in my primary six class, we would have to organise our folders for the year in a tray. Each pupil had a tray and you had to get out of your seat to access this tray but the catch here was the moment the teacher said to get back in your seats and settle down, you were to do so as fast as possible. Now, I was still trying to get my stuff back into the folder in my tray when I heard my name shouted across the room and I was ranted at for being the last out my seat. There were three other girls still out their seat in the same position as me but what I now think the teacher meant was that I was the last male. In hindsight, this incident was not a major injustice but it just goes to show how there are some gender inequalities and this can even come across as early as primary school. It also illuminates the fact that even professional classroom practitioners can demonstrate their biased nature.