There are two major problems we see in the education system in Australia, New Zealand and around the world.
- There are not enough male role models for young children in the Primary System. There are plenty in sport, but what about everywhere else?
- Teachers are expected to be outstanding at teaching every area of the curriculum. This just isn’t realistic and doesn’t serve our students.
We developed our face-to-face program to combat both of these major issues. Firstly, by providing amazing male role models who are inspired by and passionate about dance, we can demonstrate to children different pathways in life as well as getting them engaged in a fantastic form of physical, mental and social activity.
Secondly, we believe in a world where teachers are no longer expected to ‘teach’ every part of the school curriculum. Instead, teachers should be facilitators of world-class education, whilst being a leader for their students and teaching them better strategies for learning and growth. By coming into the school and teaching every single student, followed by a full-scale performance, we not only ease that pressure for teachers, we also ensure that every student gets inspired by their very own world-class education.
This program may be right for you if your Primary School:
- Has a performance coming up that they’d like to have fully taken care of and at a high standard.
- Aims to be a leader in education and seeks to innovate their curriculum.
- Likes to bring together the community to celebrate children’s learning and growth.
- Wants to have more male role models in front of your students.
- Struggles to get boys involved in the performing arts.
- Doesn’t currently provide dance education for every child in the school.
- Values the power of a growth mindset or would like to experience growth mindset strategies being used live in a classroom environment.
Different Length Programs
A daily lesson for one to four weeks allows students to engage more, and to have far better memory retention than the industry standard weekly lesson. Not only is it better for the students, but it’s also much easier to work around your school’s busy timetable.
End of Program Performance
Each program builds up to an outstanding end of program performance, organised and hosted by us.
These performances involve every single child and are a fantastic opportunity for children to demonstrate what they have learned for their parents.
Huge Value – Low Cost
We are fortunate to be able to offer our program at a price that is less than that of a cup of coffee per lesson. Cheaper than any studio dance classes, yet our students learn so much more and get to work together with their classmates.
Elite Staff Training Program
Quality is key in all of our dance sessions. Our intense training program covers everything from dance foundations and presentation, to growth mindset tools and NLP teaching strategies.
Unlike other dance companies, our staff are only allowed to teach unsupervised once fully trained and competent.
Wide Range of Dances
All students are taught a wide range of dances. From Hip Hop show dances to partner dances. The partner dances are excellent for building social and interpersonal skills and really challenging them with a new level of coordination.
Watch the students grow from not wanting to hold hands, to being confident and able to perform an advanced partner routine!
Video Resources
Our face to face dance programs are backed up with fantastic practice videos for the students.
These videos can be used in the classroom as a quick brain break and to assist the children in mastering their routines for their Performance.
So many school’s are just scratching the surface of the dance curriculum. This is usually because they don’t have the expertise within the school to deliver a program that really benefits the students.
Voluntary Participation Programs
Loads of programs are only voluntary for the students, thus predominantly including only those already engaged in dance outside of school, and their friends. Unfortunately this makes it very hard for most boys to explore dance as well. Mathematics is not optional. P.E is not optional. Dance should not be optional either. With the right teachers, dance can be fully engaging for every child, just like any other subject, and the benefits for those children are phenomenal.
We first trialled the voluntary participation concept in 2014; unfortunately, the students who will benefit the most by getting out of their social and physical comfort zone within our program, rarely if ever put their hand up to participate. For this reason, we don’t see our program as replacing these extra activities, only boosting their popularity along the way.
Teacher or Parent Run Programs
Sometimes these can be great. But usually the teacher or parent is either good at dancing, OR good at teaching. Very rarely do we come across someone that is both. The other issue is that most parents/teachers who teach dance in a school will only be experienced in one dance style – again limiting the accessibility to different students.
Video Only Dance Programs
Video based dancing is cost effective. It is not however engaging for the students and it is impossible to cater to the individual child’s needs. Being in the classroom, with the students, allows for far more complex dance movements and allows us to adjust our teaching style to the children involved.
Competition Based Programs
Competition is great for children and it introduces them to the way the real world works. However, I think children’s lives can be saturated in competition so much that they miss out on another huge aspect of life – teamwork and learning for the sake of growth, not winning. There is more to learning than just the goal of winning, let’s teach our children to learn and grow purely for the sake of bettering oneself.
Growth Mindset and Engagement Programs
With years of research and refinement into how to truly engage students, we believe that the best teachers out there have a good knowledge of growth mindset framing tools and teaching strategies. Whether you choose to use our program or not, ensure that you and your fellow teachers do whatever you can to make children feel comfortable to make mistakes in front of others and demonstrate that practice and perseverance are the only path to proficiency. If you can do that, you will unlock a world of potential for their futures.