SMSC Statement – Dance

 

SMSC Statement Dance

 

Spiritual Development

Through Dance in both KS3 and KS4 students are continually encouraged to be creative and use their imagination. We often encourage students to create their own Dance choreography using a stimulus that could be as simple as a list of prompting words, an era of time, an emotion or a story/theme.  Students are assured that there is no right or wrong within these challenges and that they are entirely open to their own interpretation, allowing them to express their ideas of the given theme in their own way.

At both KS3 and KS4 pupils are also continually encouraged to reflect on the performance and progress of themselves and others. By acting as an audience to others they develop a sense of empathy and respect for other people’s feelings, thoughts and beliefs. They are encouraged to offer opinions and suggest improvements to a performance piece whilst being mindful of what is helpful and justified whilst also ensuring not to offend or upset. Acting as an audience member also helps broaden their mind to new ideas that they may not have initially considered themselves. Reflecting on their own performance is also a powerful tool in Dance and the pupils embrace this at every opportunity. They use firstly how they feel the performance went but also video it and watch the performance back. This encourages the students to look at themselves as a performer and see what they can do to improve. This process of self and peer feedback is extremely character building for the students.

Dance is also a subject that creates a sense of enjoyment and fascination. Students learn a lot about themselves through their expressions in this subject but they also regularly get to explore the world around them. We try to offer as many different opportunities as possible through various external providers of dance in different styles, as well as looking at various different stimuli and themes for performance ourselves.

 

Moral Development

The nature of this subject means that students are regularly working together in groups. Through doing so pupils develop a strong understanding of the consequences of their actions and how these can impact not only on themselves but also others around them. There is a strong focus through this subject on a positive behaviour for learning including accepting the opinions and suggestions of others and working together to achieve a high level performance by the set deadline.

Many students also compete and perform regularly for school. In doing so understand the rules that are in place and why they are necessary. They are aware that they must adhere to these at all times and in doing so develop their skills in self-control, self-management and also the management of others.

 

Social Development

Through Dance at Parklands pupils are continually encouraged to work with students from a variety of different backgrounds. This applies both in lessons as well as in extracurricular clubs. We also produce an annual dance show which over the years has seen a cast of between 250 -300 students across all year groups and backgrounds working together to produce. The dance show is then also performed to a wide audience ranging from local primary schools right through to older family members and really encourages a sense of community within the local area.

On top of Dance within lessons we have a number of opportunities for dance leaders to complete additional activities such as working with other pupils in school, both peers of their own age and younger years, as well as going into local primary schools to offer workshops too.

This has therefore resulted in pupils working with a wide variety of people from numerous different backgrounds and the students have been able to plan and deliver these sessions accordingly.

Many of our students have had the opportunity to use both their dance and social skills in a range of different contexts. As well as learning routines from members of staff and choreographing their own dances with numerous different themes/stimuli, students also have many performance opportunities. Students regularly perform to each other for peer assessments and the sharing of ideas but they have also performed in assemblies and our annual show. A smaller group of our students have had even more performance opportunities including competitions, charity performances, local schools Christmas/summer fairs, Christmas light switch on events, sports awards evenings and carnivals.

Cultural Development

Through dance at both KS3 and KS4 the students are regularly encouraged to appreciate a wide number of cultural influences. We also have a particular focus on this during the RESPECT program and on days such as the International Day of Languages, where in the past, we have had dance specialists in from various different dance backgrounds, for example;  Latin American Dance.

All students across both key stages are always actively engaged in their dance lessons showing a willingness to participate. Attendance at dance based extracurricular clubs, trips and theatre visits is very high across school demonstrating further their willingness to participate in and explore different artistic and cultural opportunities.

Finally at KS4 the GCSE Dance students study six different professional dance works that range in their content. The dance styles vary across all six, as do the cultural influences. For example one is based on Brazilian culture and celebrating with Samba parades  whereas another is based on an Eastern European family hiding in fear of being taken to a concentration camp during the war.