News

Summer Term 2023 Delivery

This term has been our final term of in-school delivery where we have been continuing to push boundaries and find new approaches to working physically and creatively in English and Math’s. We have been continuing to work in collaboration with Teachers to design and devise content, testing material whilst allowing space to shift and change in the moment.  

Our focus has been on summer term topics including multiplication, division and fractions in Math’s and speech and dialogue, grammar and punctuation in English.  As we’ve soared into our final term of delivery, there has been a real shift with Teachers taking on much more of a leading role in delivery, design and delving into the detail in tasks. With the artist-led and co-delivery coming to an end, we have been supporting Teachers to really embed this approach into their day-to-day teaching practice and noticed a real growth in the confidence to do so.

Teachers Day

We held our most recent Teachers Day for our partner Primary School Teachers in July.  This day allowed time and space for ‘self-reflection on practice’ for both us as a company and our collaborating Teachers led by Evaluator and Critical Friend Fiona Bannon.  We trialed and tested movement tasks for our autumn term Resource Cards and developed a starter framework for our autumn term INSETs to be delivered to all class Teachers across our 5 partner primary schools.  These INSETs will be co-led by Teachers and Dance Artists and are a chance to share learning and project outcomes with the whole school with the aim to develop frameworks for this practice to be rolled out to other Teachers and year groups and become a part of ongoing curriculum design. 

Filming

We’ve visited our entire cohort of partner Primary Schools in the final half term of the academic year, shooting footage that captures tried and tested, physical and creative curriculum content, interviewing the young people involved to hear how their journey with this practice has evolved and showcasing the environments that have made this project happen to help bring our documentary film together. This has been an extra special end to our delivery in schools and has allowed the pupils to become film stars for the day and share their experiences of this new way of learning and ensure their voice is at the heart of our reflection. 

We are now busy compiling, editing and refining our film in partnership with King Sound Studio with the documentary film being available for viewing from October 2023.

Resource Cards

In collaboration with the Teachers in our partner schools, we have been busy devising a selection of English and Math’s Resource Cards, detailing movement tasks specific to autumn term learning.  These cards provide task objectives, specific success criteria, a brief breakdown of the task as well as supporting QR code film and will be trialed and tested by a selection of Primary Schools outside of the main partner Primary Schools across Lancashire in the autumn term to provide further feedback on their effectiveness. 

What’s Next?

After a brief breath over summer, we will be continuing to collaborate with King Sound Studio to shape our documentary film and select content to support our autumn term Resource Cards films. 

As the autumn term commences, Teachers in partner schools will be trialing the autumn term Resource Cards and we will be continuing to support the Teachers in integrating these tasks into their everyday practice alongside gathering reflections on these as a useful teaching tool.

Our lead Head to Toe Dance Artists will meet with Teachers over the early autumn term to prepare for our co-led Head to Toe INSETs in school.  These INSETs range from twilights to full days and will share learning and outcomes from the project and generate bespoke plans for how this approach can be taken forward across all key stages.

As we come to the close of this phase of the project, we will be bringing together our final evaluation and research findings to share across multiple platforms. We hope to generate findings that can be shared across all disciplines that have made this project happen; the arts and cultural sectors and education sectors, at regional and national level and right in the heart of the classroom. 

Keep checking out our news page and our social media to continue to follow our journey or to get in touch for more information on how this project could support your school, please contact us.

Meet the Team

From HEAD to TOE brings together a team of Artists, Teachers, Evaluators and experts in the field including:

Sarah Hall and Sarah Gough (Dance Artists, Blue Moose Dance Company)

Laura Broome (Project Manager)

Dr Fiona Bannon (Evaluator and Critical Friend)

Justine Watkins Fife (Marketing Consultant)

Paul Hamlyn Foundation (Funders)

Pat Cochrane (Evaluation support)

Chaucer Primary School, Fleetwood

Nateby Primary School

Pilling St John’s Primary School

Stalmine Primary School

St Josephs Primary School, Kirkham

Images by Claire Griffiths

Over the last year we have been busy working on the From HEAD to TOE project, funded by Paul Hamlyn Foundation, collaborating with five Primary Schools across Lancashire with the aim to explore the role of the creative, moving body in the teaching of English and Maths to attempt to increase concentration, engagement, recall and produce memorable experiences.

As we embark on the start of our second and final year, we wanted to take a moment to recap what we have done so far, what we are learning and where we might go next.

Main Aims

The main priorities explored to date are for pupils to improve their skills in retaining and recalling key vocabulary and subject knowledge and gain autonomy and independence over their learning, for teachers to gain a stronger understanding of arts-based learning and articulate and advocate for the practice, for education settings to explore how dance and movement based strategies can be embedded across the curriculum, beyond PE, and for dance artists to develop a range of strategies and better understanding of how dance can support memory and knowledge acquisition and discover the potential impact of arts-based practice on supporting children in overcoming barriers to learning.

What we’ve done so far

It has been a really exciting and eye-opening first year, with us working in new ways and, very quickly, transforming our practice and how we approach dance teaching in schools. To date we have explored a range of topics within the English and Maths curricula including word class, descriptive, narrative and report writing, poetry, place value, spellings and times tables. Our research has resulted in a range of full lesson plans (one hour up to one day), short tasks and games to support recall and memory (for topics like spelling and times tables) and movement interventions, supporting pupils to maintain or regain focus throughout the learning day and before and after key transitions. The practical delivery has been planned in partnership between Teachers and Artists, uniting the expertise from both areas, and, through live collaboration in the moment, the content has been refined and is taken back to the classroom for further exploration. This approach is beginning to support strategies to be embedded for both pupils and teachers and begin to shift towards a new way of learning. We are really loving seeing how this work is not only valuable but also becoming a part of the everyday approach in schools!

Discoveries

We are discovering that the need for being physical and using the whole body for learning is more apparent than ever post-pandemic. We also noticed a dip in self-confidence and independence in learning after spending a lot of time 1:1 at home during lockdown, or after not accessing much support or response at all when learning.  These discoveries appear to be remaining for lower KS2 pupils despite returning to a more regular school life and appear to have a direct relation to concentration and engagement, therefore we have chosen to continue to navigate two routes of enquiry for our final year of research; physical, creative strategies for learning AND interventions to support the nervous system and regulation of the body.

Our Ethos

As you will know if you engage with our work, our creative approach and participant-led ethos is the main reason we do what we do. Dance is how we work with people but the people (YOU!) themselves are the reason why! However, this way of working has had a bigger impact than we first realised, for both pupils and teachers. Pupils are independently recalling rhythms, patterns, movements and visualisations from our sessions to support their application of the learning in written tasks. For teachers, they are identifying methods of assessment that utilise physical, creative strategies, opening up a new avenue for assessing retainment and recall of key subject knowledge whilst allowing pupils to be more engaged and interested in these moments and meet their ranging physical needs in the process.

What’s next

As we shift into the 2^nd year of this two-year project we aim to further refine our strategies and approaches and empower teachers to take on this practice as a regular part of their delivery. We are in talks with schools to embed these approaches into future curriculum design and are planning to meet with Governors, Local Authority School Advisers and the wider arts and education sectors to share our findings and advocate for this practice further.

Keep checking out our news page and our social media to continue to follow our journey or to get in touch for more information on how this project could support your school, please contact us.

Meet the Team

From HEAD to TOE brings together a team of Artists, Teachers, Evaluators and experts in the field including:

Sarah Hall and Sarah Gough (Dance Artists, Blue Moose Dance Company)

Laura Broome (Project Manager)

Dr Fiona Bannon (Evaluator and Critical Friend)

Justine Watkins Fife (Marketing Consultant)

Paul Hamlyn Foundation (Funders)

Pat Cochrane (Evaluation support)

Chaucer Primary School, Fleetwood

Nateby Primary School

Pilling St John’s Primary School

Stalmine Primary School

St Josephs Primary School, Kirkham

Images by Claire Griffiths

We are looking to expand our Moose family by welcoming Freelance Dance Artists from across Lancashire and North Yorkshire to deliver on our education and community dance programmes. Our work in these areas is expanding and we are looking to expand our team in line with this! Come join us!

We are looking for Dance Artists with:

–       experience delivering to Primary School and/or community groups, or with experience and knowledge of teaching the age range.

–       who are commitment to excellence in teaching and to developing their practice

–       who are approachable, fun, engaging and love inspiring the next generation!

–       who are reliable, committed and strong communicators

–       experience working in and delivering creative dance practice

–       access to a car with full, clean driving licence (desirable) or the ability to travel across Lancashire and/or North Yorkshire via public transport if a non-driver (essential)

–       valid Public Liability Insurance and an enhanced DBS (within the last 3 years)

Our education work involves in-curricular and extra-curricular delivery including choreography workshops, inspiring young people through creative dance experiences, using school curriculum topics and other themes to give them an exciting framework to learn, to draw inspiration from and to produce exciting and high quality choreography and dance technique. Our community work is very much in the same tone; empowering members of the community to find a new outlet through moving, creating and dancing together. Our work is often within school term time and either full days or a series of weeks (1-2 hours or half days per week).

Work will be offered as and when available, based on individual skills and availability. rates of pay vary between £20 and £35 per hour dependent upon experience. 

Find our more about our work at www.bluemoosedance.org.uk

If you are interested in joining our team, please send a CV and cover letter outlining your relevant experience and interests to sarah@bluemoosedance.org.uk with the subject heading TEAM MOOSE by Tuesday 15th November 2022, 5pm.

Suitable applicants will be selected for a follow up discussion via zoom before being invited to join team Moose.

We’re on the lookout for someone to join our team in a Research and Evaluation position to support our from HEAD to TOE and everything in between project which is currently underway in Primary Schools across Lancashire.

from Head to Toe, funded by the Paul Hamlyn Foundation’s Arts-Based Learning Fund, marks a new way of Blue Moose Dance Company working within education; creating a different learning environment, exploring the creative moving body in a different area of the curriculum and developing a longer-term relationship with teaching staff and SLTs.

We are seeking a critical friend to help guide the reflective process throughout the remainder of this project, supporting Artists and Teachers in their collaboration to establish relevant approaches, evaluate and reflect at regular intervals and act as an outside eye to help draw the best learning out of this experience.

For further information and how to apply, download our Invitation to Tender.

Please note the deadline for applications is Friday 10th June at 5pm.

The Summer term has brought us not much sun but a slow releasing of restrictions which in turns has meant we are able to return to teaching dance in primary schools in person, one of our favourite things to do! This term our brilliant Team Moose Artists have been back out on the road, connecting with Primary Schools and their super talented pupils, leading creative dance classes in the curriculum and as extra curriculum activity.

And this term we were able to invite the wonderful Claire Griffiths along to a couple of classes to capture the magic of our our Dance in Education programme. Claire visited Garstang Primary School who are a long-term partner school, which we love to visit every year. Their pupils have been exploring The BFG and Lindy Hop in their in-curricular dance sessions this term as well as develop original choreography for the end of year performance for their Year 6 pupils.

Check out Claire’s wonderful images below. It is so great so capture the joy on the pupils faces and the energy and outlet our dance sessions give them. It really is the best job in the world!

If you are interested in Dance provision for your school, get in touch! Hannah, our Education Coordinator is ready and waiting to make plans!