Literature- Arts education is a postcode lottery.

Another article that I have come across is "Arts education is a postcode lottery."
It says what Labour Manifesto are going to do to help the arts industry;
"refers to the creative industries as “a source of national pride”, and promises to “put creativity back at the heart of the curriculum”

But then also:
"This stops short of a pledge to add an arts element to the Ebacc – as the subset of GCSEs given special status by the government is now known"  

So the goverment want to fund into arts in the education but they are not prepared to put it into the Ebacc subjects? Another confusing moment for me. As the atricle goes on it explains that private schools are encouraging dance and the arts sujects and rpovide the best facilities. So parents that are paying for their childs learning are paying for them to be involved in the arts but not all goverment led high schools are providing this.

Matt Hannock is supporting dance is education and says: 
“We want to build an economy that works for everyone not just the privileged few,” said arts minister Matt Hancock in a speech to the creative industries last September. “No one should be excluded from any of your industries because of their accent, their gender or their postcode.” 

“Talent knows no boundaries,” he said, and I agree. But talent needs the building block of a decent education in the arts.

Here is the article- 
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jun/05/post-brexit-britain-need-theatre-public-investment-creative-economy   

Literature - Students taking arts at the GCSE level drops.

I have just come across an article that states percentages of students taking art subjects dropping the lowest it has been in a decade.

“In 2016, the North East experienced a particularly sharp drop in arts entries. The proportion of pupils entering at least one arts subject now ranges from 57.3 per cent in the South West to 47.8 per cent in the North East, a gap of 9.5 percentage points.”

Although the above quote does not prove that GCSE dance doesn't get the equal treatment as academic subjects, I also came across another quote that shows schools push the students towards academic subjects in order to make their school look better. Surely that is wrong? What does it matter to a school if the GCSE is in geography, or language or dance or music? A GCSE is a GCSE and if your student is taking part in the class and achieving well surely this shouldn't matter what subject this is in.

"It measures the percentage of students in a school who achieve five or more A*-C grades in English, mathematics, two sciences, a foreign language and history or geography at GCSE.
But critics say this has led to a decline in arts subjects, as teachers encourage bright students to enter for the Ebacc to boost the school's performance rating."

I honeslty do not believe you should encourage students towards the Ebacc just to improve your schools rating. It is a very frustrating but interesting read for me. Here is the atricle. 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/2017/09/21/number-pupils-taking-arts-subjects-gcse-falls-lowest-level-decade/
 

Inquiry tool - Surveys.

I just complete a short survey on survey monkey to see if it was easy and straight forward. I am posting the link, please let me know what you think or any other questions you believe might be helpful for my inquiry.

https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/RBRWZFD

Thanks.

6A- Informal questions with SIG

Today I carried out a few questions with my SIG group on facebook to get some feedback on a few questions and see what data I can collect from the few questions given. The SIG is a few girls from this BAPP course that are heading down the route of teaching. The reason I am trialing out with them is because once they have answered this I can then get feedback and also see if the data received is helpful towards my inquiry. This is the first trial and I am hoping to do a few more before deciding on my final questions.

1. Have you ever come across or noticed anything that has made you see as a teacher that dance does not get the equal treatment to academic subjects?

2. Do you personally believe dance should be as important and equal to academic subjects at GCSE level?

3. Have you ever come across any parents that do not support dance as an important subject? If so what has been said?

Above is the answers I received. I will also be doing a trial questionnaire to see what answers I can receive from that. The SIG group have all really helped eachother and as we are all going down the teaching route I found their answers really useful.

 

 

6B- Reflecting tools

Whilst deciding how I will collect my data here are my current views on the four tools explained in module 2:

Observation:
Personally it is not something that I believe will massively benefit me, although I will be observing answers from my interviewees I don't plan on observing such things as students in a class, or a teachers teaching method.

Interviews:
This is going to be my main way of collecting data, whether I interview and use video or just voice notes that is not yet decided and also depends on the candidate being interviewed. I am to keep some informal (to the students) and others formal (teachers in the workplace). The reason I am keen to use interviewing as one of my main tools is because I think I will get a better responce rather than if I sent them away with questionares to fill out.

Survey and Questionares:
I am intending to use this for if I decide to ask for parents opinions and they are happy taking part in my inquiry. I will be making them and sending some students home with them for the parents to answer. I am not yet 100% sure on this but the reason why I think this would benefit my inquiry is because I want to know if the parents agree that dance is an important subject at GCSE level. I think if I ask the students to answer for them I may not receive the correct information.

Focus groups:
Focus groups seems to be a way to save time, although I do not believe this would work for the students as some having a bigger character than others and therefore I may not receive the most from all students. This could be a way for collecting data from the teachers as if I it was videoed I could re watch and collect what I needed from the group descussion.

I have set out my two main tools which I am to use in my inquiry because it is what I feel I will achieve the most from (interviews and questionares). However, I am not ruling out any others as I would like to trial them and see how they go before making any decisions.

Group Skype

My aim from the group skype was to discuss whether my question was the right question and if I was on the correct path. I had the chanced to speak to the group and explain my idea behind the question:
Does dance get equal treatment to the academic subjects?
It was clear after I started to explain about my research so far that dance does not get the equal treatment so I was already answering the question. So although it was an interesting topic and I was finding out what I needed, I was already answering the question. From here I made a few notes of what I want to find out,

• The history behind this answer.
• What some students and parents think to this.
• How can people in the arts change this?
• Should the arts subjects be less important than academic
• Are there jobs in the arts as sucessful as academic jobs
• Why people who don't dance think it isn't important in GCSE

From here I have lots of work and research to do in order to start pulling my inquiry together.
What I ideally want to do now is:

1. Make a questionare for a range of students to fill in, dance and non dance students.
2. Overview some books and history on GCSE
3. Speak to teachers who have been teaching for 10-15 years and see how GCSE dance has changed.
4. Speak to parents and see if they are influencing on their children if dance is important as other subjects.

Anyone taking part in my inquiry will only be participating if they are happy with this and understand exactly what I will be doing with their inofrmation.

I feel this week I have gained a more clear view on where I want to be moving with my inquiry.