Dance at Christ Church and Holy Trinity Schools

Dance Intent

At Christ Church and Holy Trinity Schools, we have a specialist dance teacher who encourages children to develop their creativity by exploring a range of dance styles and stimuli which link to classroom topics.

Studying cultural education subjects, such as dance sparks creativity across the curriculum, encouraging young people to be inquisitive, disciplined and determined.

Dance as a subject is unique, in that it blends artistic practice with physical activity. Children enjoy expressing their ideas as well as learning historical dances and watching professional dance performances (live or filmed).

Dance Implementation

The dance teacher plans for progression in dance skills throughout the school. Technical skills, creative tasks and dance appreciation are planned so that clear progression is made through the years.

The dance curriculum is taught and assessed in the 3 main areas: COMPOSE, PERFORM and APPRECIATE.

Children at Christ Church and Holy Trinity benefit from high quality cultural education.  Dance exposes young people of all learning abilities to a cultural form through which they can express their own identity and culture as well as experience cultures from around the world.

When possible, pupils experience visits to the theatre, perform on a London stage, watch filmed professional dance talk about their experiences outside of school. children who are particularly interested in dance can take part in the dance competition “Dance Energy” with other schools in RBKC at Cadogan Hall.

The dance teacher reviews the dance curriculum as a stand-alone subject.  The dance teacher develops and amends the curriculum to ensure it is up to date and relevant.  Previous learning is reviewed so plans can be amended accordingly.

Dance Impact

The dance curriculum enables children to work at a high standard.  The children have many opportunities to dance as part of a team, and individually, following the teacher’s lead or using their own ideas to express themselves. Children are used to practising a dance to the point where they are ready to share it either through recording films or performing to peers and parents.

Children with a talent for dance are made aware of opportunities for them to further develop their talent.

Earthworks

Children from both schools who enjoy dance were invited to take part in this intergenerational dance piece that was performed as part of the Arts and Crafts Festival Holy Trinity Sloane Square. The piece was focused on the climate crisis and is the artistic interpretation of three choreographers to the challenges that our greedy use of the planet’s resources has created for future generations.  The piece involved mature and current students of The Place reflecting what’s been done, what we’re grappling with and our hope for the future – your children.  Older dancers talked with the children about some of these challenges during their creative time with them.

The links below show rehearsals for this wonderful dance show that was enjoyed by the whole community.