For many of our young people, the Dance Leadership award is a great opportunity for development – building on their confidence, leadership skills, relationships with their peers, and working together in groups to share their ideas.
This year we ran two courses over a week – Level 2 and Level 4. On the Monday, everyone spent the morning getting to know one another and decided on the ground rules. The young people were then allocated groups and had to work together to choreograph dance routines to teach to the other groups and staff.
On Tuesday, the young people learned about rhythm and the three elements of dance. This was a group exercise and everyone put forward their ideas and opinions. As well as the group exercise, everyone took part in perfecting a hip-hop routine which they all picked up very easily! We also followed a rhythm routine to ‘We Will Rock You’ using drumsticks – this went down well with the young people.
By Wednesday it was clear the young people’s confidence was increasing; communication among the groups was stronger, and dance routines were being adapted to suit all abilities. This resulted in evaluations from other groups being at a Green (Good) level.
On Thursday, everyone spent their day planning and practising their group dance routines. They all came up with ground rules, structure and who would take the lead on teaching everyone else the different elements of the warm up, the dance routine, and the cool down.
Friday saw the assessment day where all the young people performed in groups in front of the assessor … and successfully passed!
- Six young people achieved the Level 2 Dance Leader qualification: “Leadership skills for a dance leader”
- Four young people achieved the Level 4 Dance Leader qualification: “Establishing leadership skills”
- One young person achieved the Silver Person Achievement award.
Well done to you all!
If this has inspired you to foster, please get in contact with us by sending us an enquiry, or by phoning us on 0333 240 9049.