After School Dance Clubs Ensure That Dance Stays on the Curriculum

Sometimes Primary schools can be a little too focused on their provision of numeracy, literacy and the like to be interested in the Arts.

All too often the first items to fall off the end of the curriculum are Music, Dance, Art and anything seen as, dare I say it, "not real subjects".

Very often cross curricular links can be used when teaching dance in primary schools allowing important subject matter to be taught whilst keeping a focus on creativity.

An ideal way of ensuring that dance gets the priority it deserves to ensure that the children have access to an out of school club. A child attending a dance club prior to the start of a normal school is alert, refreshed and ready for lessons. An after school dance club also allows children to work out the frustrations of the day and if working with a professional dancer be inspired to take dance further in later life.

Dance Clubs are run across the United Kingdom for this very purpose and are proving to be very successful in primary schools. Teachers have reported a real increase in attention spans amongst young children who attend the classes before school and believe that it really prepares the children for the learning day. There has also been a marked reduction in classroom disruption by pupils who attend a dance breakfast club.

The clubs that have been most successful are the ones which create a feeling of belonging. The children are provided with freebies - stickers and gifts which makes them feel like they are members of a team or "special" club. This together with the nature of a physical exercise has lead to high attendance for the dance clubs and provides a welcome boost to the class teachers who are then provided with a group of motivated children first thing in the morning.