5b Ethics Within My Workplace

Safeguarding is most certainly an important aspect of the Education System. On a day to day basis i have to make sure i follow the polices regarding Safe Guarding. Next week i am going on further safeguarding training called PREVENT which is required for every member of staff within an education environment to attend.

After looking up online Safeguarding online i discovered the requirements that schools need to follow to ensure they are reaching the correct standard of  requirements to care for the children to their full potential while they are within the education setting. 

Safeguarding: A Definition

Ofsted adopts the definition of safeguarding used in the Children Act 2004 and in the Department for Education and Skills (now DfE) guidance document Working together to safeguard children, which focuses on safeguarding and promoting children’s and learners’ welfare.[1] This can be summarised as:

n  protecting children and learners from maltreatment

n  preventing impairment of children’s and learners’ health or development

n  ensuring that children and learners are growing up in circumstances consistent with the provision of safe and effective care

n  undertaking that role so as to enable those children and learners to have optimum life chances and to enter adulthood successfully.

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[1]Working together to safeguard children, Department for Education and Skills, 2006; www.education.gov.uk/publications/standard/publicationDetail/Page1/WT2006.

When looking on the Gov website there are many links that appear with regarding safeguarding children. It puts into prospective how important safeguarding is, making sure that  every child  is cared for. 

https://www.gov.uk/topic/schools-colleges-childrens-services/safeguarding-children

website from my workplace has the policies accessible at anytime for parents ,teacher, local authorities and Ofsted  to view infomation regarding data protection, behaviour policies , child protection and also each subject policies ...  When I began my position as a Dance Teacher at the school I was given an induction booklet which contained all the key policies that I should follow to fulfil my position.

Would love to hear about policies that you follow in your education setting.

5a Ethics Within The Workplace

With the school that i work in there are many ethical considerations that i have to follow on a day to day basis. I have decided to do a little spider diagram of  the ethical considerations that i could think of within my workplace in education. I have also expanded on some aspects of ethical considerations these are linked but these are also important  aspects that i must respect and be aware of in my profession of teaching children.

• Safeguarding

• Data Protection

• Staff/Placement CRB check

• No physical contact with children

• Appropriate Language

• Wear suitable clothing/Be clean and presentable

• Equal opportunity/No discrimination (for both teachers and pupils)

• Confidentiality 

• Health and safety policies

•  Policies
•  Social Media  Privacy Settings  

My Thoughts Towards My Inquiry After Today

After teaching a class today of primary school children today it has made me think more deeply on my questions and after speaking to other professionals and teachers within the education sector.

It was very evident during today that children were no used to kinestetic learning as the children are used to sitting at a desk looking at the whiteboard and listening to the teacher  (visual and audio ) this happens on a day to day basis during in English and Maths.

I really want to further my inquiry on looking at how can different learning styles  and performing arts aspects could be incorporated into  other academic subjects as soon as children enter education. After speaking to teachers there seems to be very limited on the amount of  time to teach more vocational subjects for example the performing arts  . 

There are many benefits to performing arts in the education system when growing up but why are they not prioritised in the national curriculum? could  this improve the grades of children and allow the children to have a  greater attention span by incorporating more interactive(performing arts) aspects of the lessons ? As every child requires different needs but are schools currently meeting their learning needs to make sure they reach their full potential?

I am very passionate in raising standards of children's learning and i really do believe that performing arts aspects of teaching can help many children. 

I have came to the conclusion after speaking to teachers in my workplace and also dance teachers that i would like my inquiry to be based around creativity and performing arts in education how can this be included and also benefit children through education?

Would love to hear your views on my thoughts on today

EVIDENCE REPORT ON IMPACT OF DANCE Literature 2

This evidence report is very interesting as it is evident that performing arts has benefits on children education outcomes.

Many class teachers i speak to are very uncertain how to teach the specialist subject such as the performing arts discipline so they do as little as they can in these subjects and decide to stick to the more educational subjects which they are more confident in .But if these subjects are not taught enough are these children missing out an aspect of their education  and could they achieve more ?

This article is based around Middle School and High School children  but i believe that this is beneficial for children younger aswell as there is evidence of learning outcomes for the children .

https://s3.amazonaws.com/ClubExpressClubFiles/893257/documents/Final_Evidence_Report.pdf?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAIB6I23VLJX7E4J7Q&Expires=1488752908&response-content-disposition=inline%3B%20filename%3DFinal_Evidence_Report.pdf&Signature=wgJWk7YoQLyPZZtMD5bi4YVCKWc%3D

I have printed this document out and annotated parts that i believe are important aspects for my study

I would love to hear your opinions of the evidence  !

Standards for Dance in Early Childhood Literature 1

After researching on the web with regards to performing arts education i came across this website which is very meaningful within the article http://www.ndeo.org/content.aspx?page_id=22&club_id=893257&module_id=55419

Dance and performing arts  is certainly an important part of childhood certainly within school there is a constant aspect when talking to teachers that there isnt enough time to do creative activities with children as there is constant pressure of the national curriculum of making sure they gain grades to get children's standards of Maths and English up at the age of 4! how can this be changed ?

This article below i have printed out and annotated my thoughts and opinions to each section. During module 1 i focused very much on the aspects of To learn by “doing” (Dewey 1915) and at the young age of early childhood i believe this is the correct way that children learn the right from wrong by experimenting with different aspects of physical development.

I would love your hear your view on this article!

Standards for Dance in Early Childhood

Philosophy Underlying Early Childhood Standards

Dance embodies one of our most primal relationships to the universe. It is pre-verbal, beginning before words can be formed. It is innate in children before they possess command over language and is evoked when thoughts or emotions are too powerful for words to contain.

Children move naturally. They move to achieve mobility, they move to express a thought or feeling, and they move because it is joyful and feels wonderful. When their movement becomes consciously structured and is performed with awareness for its own sake, it becomes dance.

Dance is a natural method for learning and a basic form of cultural expression. Children learn movement patterns as readily as they learn language. Just as all societies create forms of visual representation or organize sounds into music, all cultures organize movement and rhythm into one or more forms of dance. Yet, while our educational systems for early childhood include drawing and singing, they often neglect to include dance. It is essential that education provide our children with the developmental benefits and unique learning opportunities that come from organizing movement into the aesthetic experience of dance.


The Benefits of Dance


Dance is a powerful ally for developing many of the attributes of a growing child. Dance helps children mature physically, emotionally, socially, and cognitively. The physical benefits of dance are widely accepted, but the emotional, social and cognitive attributes have only recently begun to be appreciated.


Physical Development: Dance involves a greater range of motion, coordination,
strength and endurance than most other physical activities. This is
accomplished through movement patterns that teach coordination and
kinesthetic memory. Dancing utilizes the entire body and is an excellent form of
exercise for total body fitness. Young children are naturally active, but dance
offers an avenue to expand movement possibilities and skills.

Emotional Maturity: Dance promotes psychological health and maturity. Children
enjoy the opportunity to express their emotions and become aware of
themselves and others through creative movement. A pre-school child enters a
dance class or classroom with a history of emotional experiences. Movement
within a class offers a structured outlet for physical release while gaining
awareness and appreciation of oneself and others.

Social Awareness: Dance fosters social encounter, interaction, and cooperation.
Children learn to communicate ideas to others through the real and immediate
mode of body movement. Children quickly learn to work within a group dynamic.
As the ongoing and sometimes challenging process of cooperation evolves,
children learn to understand themselves in relation to others.

Cognitive Development: Young children will create movement spontaneously
when presented with movement ideas or problems that can be solved with a
movement response. Movement provides the cognitive loop between the idea,
problem, or intent and the outcome or solution. This teaches an infant, child and,
ultimately, adult to function in and understand the world. The relationship of
movement to intellectual development and education is an embryonic field of
study that has only recently begun to be explored.


Educational Philosophy

Dance is basic to learning. Children learn most readily from experience. John Dewey understood this when he asserted, “Action is the test of comprehension” (Dewey, 1915). To learn by “doing” and to act on knowledge is the basis of kinesthetic learning. Kinesthetic learning is becoming more widely understood through the work of Jean Piaget (1896-1980), Howard Gardner (1944- ), and other cognitive theorists.

Dance, in particular, integrates kinesthetic learning with understanding. Preschool children do not conceptualize abstract processes (Piaget). They primarily learn through physical and sensory experiences. When children are provided with creative movement problems that involve the selection of movement choices, they learn to think in the concrete reality of movement. Thus, learning the art of dance helps young children develop knowledge, skill, and understanding about the world.

Dance helps children develop literacy. To the young child, verbal language and movement are entwined. Preverbal movement expression does not cease when a child develops language. The road to literacy involves the translation of movement expression and communication into words. Learning language and learning dance are not separate threads, but are woven together and incorporated into a fabric of communication and understanding.

Dance provides young children multiple perspectives. It is “a foundation of experience necessary for the future development of more advanced skills and a way to affirm an inner life and alternate realities” (Stinson, 1990). Through dance, children develop enhanced sensory awareness, cognition, and consciousness. It is this heightened state that creates the magic of movement that is dance.

Importance of Standards

The Standards for Dance in Early Childhood are important because they
Provide a scaffold outlining the breadth and scope of learning and teaching dance as an art upon which to design curricula and course syllabi.

Standards are a guide, not a directive nor a curriculum. They offer constructive support, suggesting areas of curriculum but not defining it. Standards allow each district or school to develop an approach most suited to local or individual values.

Serve as a springboard for creativity for the learning and teaching of dance making: improvisation, choreography, and composition.
Standards suggest avenues of creative exploration in the arts-making
processes of Performing, Creating, Responding to, and
Interconnecting dance learning to knowledge of other disciplines and life skills.
Define age-appropriate expectations and levels of achievement in the art of dance.

Standards inform individual schools of dance and school districts what students should know and be able to do in the art of dance at certain benchmark levels when taught by a highly qualified dance teacher in a graduated curriculum.

http://www.ndeo.org/content.aspx?page_id=22&club_id=893257&module_id=55419

What do you think ?

Behaviour is important aspect of school life these days and many  behaviour management methods are incorporated in a day to day basis .After a conversation I  had with a senior pastoral manager with regards to incorporating dance to help the behaviour at lunch times and also helping some children after lunch time making sure they go back to lessons in a  relaxed state.

After some research online thinking of ways this can be done to benefit the children, this week were going to try playing music on the playground and myself going out creating dance routines  to keep children focused and out of mischief during their lunch break, and after lunch  time going to incorporate selected children to go into the sensory room for 15 minutes before going to lesson trying some slow and gentle movements  and relax time. We are hoping that this will allow the children to become more focused during the afternoon of learning and be more productive instead of currently distracting other children in their learning.

the following link below i found very interesting as it shows the school in Baltimore changed the behaviour of the children around and this is where the idea has came from .

  http://edition.cnn.com/2016/11/04/health/meditation-in-schools-baltimore/

what do you think of this idea ?