Reviewing my questionnaires.

I am coming up to the stage where most of my participants have completed their questionnaires or interviews. I have taken time to review these and take notes ready to use in my review and I am very shocked at some of the things I have read.
One of my questions were:

'By 2020, the arts industry will be providing a third of the employment in the UK, would you support your child if they decided to take a career in dance? Again, please explain your reasoning behind your answer.'

Participant 1- yes, because it is a great way for a child who struggles to shine.

My view on this is that why is this only ok because a child who struggles may now have the chance to shine. GCSE dance is no easier than any other subject and therefore should not just be classed as a career for the children who struggle.

As I believe GCSE dance is just as important as any other GCSE some of the feedback I am receiving is shocking me as I find it difficult to see why somebody wouldn't agree. What I do like reading is peoples reasons why they agree or disagree and thinking of ways that schools could provide evidence that GCSE dance is leading to just as successful careers as to a GCSE in any other subject.

Module 3 students

Hi module 3 students,
I know a lot of us have spoken about a Skype call between us but I am thinking tomorrow lunch time around 12/1?
I feel like this could really help us all out and we can all be reassured at the things we are doing.
I know everyone is at different points and there is different topics floating about in module 3 I feel loads of us could really benefit from this.

Let me know what you all think!!

Literature review.

I am finding now that my pages of articles saved is beginning to pile up which I am happy about. Since understanding that we are not looking for an 'answer' as such but to more develop our knowledge and find out more about our inquiry topic that I have been able to use a lot more literature. I must admit, so far all my literature collected is blogs and articles but I am finding them extremely useful and interesting.
I am beginning to find patterns occurring within education and the arts and these are STEM subjects and Ebacc. Developing my knowledge into this and then seeing evidence of it affecting the art's subjects has been really helpful for my inquiry.

Hopefully over the next week I can just focus on my literature and get the review for that section written.
How is everyone else finding their literature review so far?

Practitioner tools in full swing.

All my questionnaires are done, being sent out Friday and interviews will be done and completed my Friday the 16th March. Feeling relieved and happy with the question's I have set out to be answered. I have sent out emails to the teachers involved to complete my questionnaires and I have set a personal questionnaire for Rebecca Curtis, Head of Dance at Ipswich High School. She is in a recent blog I wrote and she wrote a great blog about STEM subjects affecting GCSE dance.

STEM subjects decreasing the arts.

Last week I read this blog from the head of dance at Ipswich high school, Rebecca Curtis. I find it amazing that a teacher can be so insprinig and so passionate to push dance at this highschool to stop the amount of students decreasing in the Art's subjects.
Rebecca quotes:
'Creative Industries careers currently account for 1 in 20 jobs; contributing £84.1 billion a year to the UK economy. By 2020, these figures are expected to show that Creative Industries will be one of the top three areas of employment in this country. The children of today will be doing jobs that do not even exist yet.'
WOW!!! This was my first thought. If the art's are going to be in the top 3 areas of employment why are most schools not valueing these as a 'proper' subject?
Rebecca continues to talk about how STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and mathmatics) has effected most schools and has lead to either a decrease in students or the subject being removed from the school's curriculum. As she is a very passionate teacher and has the support from the school Ipswich high school now encourage STEAM  (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Mathmatics) and this has lead to more students taking the subjects at GCSE as well as the other core subjects.

Personally, I feel more schools should be taking some advice from this and encouraging the students to do whatever subjects they enjoy. After all, if the arts are going to be in the top 3 areas of employment by 2020 then clearly there are jobs available for these students. 

Rebecca's Article.  

Rebecca was involved with my last blog from the comments off facebook and has been in touch to say she will answer some interview questions for my inquiry which I think is great news. 

Hope some of you find this as interesting and helpful as I did. 

Teachers opinions.

I recently put a post in a group of dance teachers on facebook which all teach GCSE dance.
I decdided to just ask their opinions on GCSE dance compared to academic subjects.

I am now blogging everyones opinions but have covered the names of these people. I didn't intend to use this in my inquiry at first, I decided to do this to see if anyone's opinions inspired me in my inquiry. After the amount of comments I received I had to share this with my other peers. 1. It might help in your inquiry but 2. It may be something you would like to try out.

Sorry for the long amount of pictures of comments to read. I am blogging it so I can refer back to this in my inquiry and show the impact GCSE dance is causing and the concerns it is raising to the teachers teaching this.

Module 3 skype call.

I have come away from last nights skype call feeling reliecved. After reading module 3 handbook I went into panic mode and just couldn't piece together where to start! After the skype call I felt more relaxed and now know to trust myself, there is no right or wrong!

Questionares, interviews and talks-
This became my biggest fear as I explained in the group, everytime I think of a question I am not sure I will get the right answer.
This is where Adesola said: You are not looking for an answer. It is how you analyse your data and the questions that leads you to.
The other girls in the group said this was a worry of theirs too but now we now, if it feels right it will be right.

Literature-
 My question in this section was: Am I ok with using most of my literature from articles, blogs, ETC?
I found out most peoples literature is the same, it is points of views we are reading from other people. It is also where I seem to be finding the percentages from to see the rise/fall of dance (which is helpful for my inquiry). Lauren again mentioned that she found her book really helpful, it also provided her with the history and some facts she never knew. So, that is my next job. FIND A BOOK.

Overall, I came away with a clear mind and today I feel refreshed and ready to move forward in my inquiry. Again Lauren (thankyou) she said: I find it like a jigsaw, theres lots of pieces and its about learning to piece them together.

Dance education.

"Dance remains one of the most popular art forms

amongst young people. Surveys show that dance is

the second most popular physical activity following

football, and is a very attractive cultural form through

which young people of all learning abilities can express

their own identities and cultures. Dance enables

young people to gain artistic skills and discipline, as

well as developing their ability in physical interaction,

team working, problem solving, observing, evaluating,

verbal and non-verbal communication. Through dance

young people collaborate with other art forms, and

make connections with design in space, musicality

and creativity. Dance can improve self-esteem and

confidence; it can widen aspiration and help tackle

obesity and other health issues."

Above is a section of an article that I have taken from Dance education, a guide for governors and trustees.
http://www.artscouncil.org.uk/sites/default/files/download-file/ACE172%20Dance%20Education%20for%20Governors%20and%20Trustees%20-%20WEB_0.pdf

I think that for anyone taking the teacher route in dance may want to read this. The article focus's on explaining what dance can do for a student which is shown clearly in the section above. If dance can make such an impact on a student then I still cannot understand why it is a compulsary subject.

Instead of me going into futher detail on the article I would like to know my peers thoughts?
Do you agree dance should be compulsary or do you think differently?
Also, does anyone think dance isn't getting the value it deserves? aferall, it isn't even an option in some schools!

Module 3

I have just got round to finishing reading the handbook and making my first set of notes. I don't know if because it is linked very closely to our work in module 2 but I feel I understand this handbook more than any of the others.

I feel very ready for this last term and determined to get my head down and complete module 3 before moving on to one more year of education. PGDE. I have just received a place for Liverpool John Moor university to complete my PGDE and my QTS (YAY).

My biggest concern is how quickly time is going. Juggling this course, my skills test revision, my job, my volunteering and my teaching sometimes can be overwhelming. However, I am very confident than in a years time all this work and time spent in education will be worth it.

Im ready to complete the last bit of the journey, (probably the most stressful) but I am sure when we get to the finish line we will all be relieved.
Good luck to my fellow M3 students.
Lets keep going.

GCSE dance from a GCSE students point of view.

Reading up on this article for an interview I have in a few days and I have come across this article which seems to have so much in common with my proposal.

'A students view to why art subjects matter'
https://www.theguardian.com/teacher-network/2016/jan/31/career-arts-gcse-dance-stop-the-stem-subject-snobbery

This article made me smile so much and remember my time in school whilst taking GCSE dance. It is mad how much I can relate and understand how it feels when yet another person says 'dance is easy' or 'why are you not taking a proper subject?'.
I have said it before and I will say it again. A GCSE is a GCSE no matter on the subject.

It is great to see a students point of view, and her peers point of view and parents all in one article.
It is clear that GCSE dance is as important to this student as any other GCSE she is taking.

The student says:
'To study arts subjects, you have to take risks, push yourself emotionally, expressively and creatively in every lesson, you have to persevere and be interpretive, passionate and collaborative. I’ve worked harder in these subjects than I’ve ever worked in my life'.

No matter what the subject be, if a student can be this passionate and work so hard towards a GCSE then nobody else should care what GCSE she will be receiving. Dance teaches people so much more than just how to move.

 I can't wait to see what type of feedback I receive off my own students once they have had interviews with me.

Reflecting on Module 2 whilst thinking about my Critical reflection

Slightly hoping I am not the only one who has found Module 2 a whirl wind?!

So after days, weeks and even months of stressing and thinking of how completely lost I am, I am starting to hope things are piecing together. It's come to the time where I am about to write my critical reflection on the inquiry proposal. And I have that many views and feelings I have no idea where to begin. I went from having 5 different possible lines of inquirys to having to take a chance, choose one and go with it. Thankfully it's turned out I am so interested in my inquiry so far.

Reflecting now as I blog I can only say, I am relieved things have come together. But I can also say I still think I have a long way to go. I feel like as a person and in my career I am sometimes learning more and moving forward a lot more than what my work is, but without doing well in my work I won't be able to achieve that 'dream job'.

Does anybody else feel this module has been a massive whirl wind?
How different do you think it has been to module 1?

Hope everyone has a lovely christmas and looks back on how much they have achieved this year!!

Award specialism title

Title: BA (hons) in professional practice in performing arts.

I have decided to choose performing arts, becuase I feel the main figures and evidence in my inquiry is from performing arts not just dance.

Rationale:

In 2015 I graduated from KS Dance LTD with a Level 6 Diploma in Professional Dance with a commendation from the examiner. I then went into the dance industry auditioning and working whilst also teaching in a private run dance school. At the end of 2016 I began to realise my main passion was teaching and I wanted to pursue this further. After having a think about where my main sector of teaching would be I decided on the secondary sector because that is where I first found my passion for dancing, I had lots of support from my teachers and I want to now give back what I received during my secondary school time. I am currently volunteering in my own high school Droylsden Academy, whilst having my own Youth Dance Company and working a part-time job and completing my BA (hons) in Professional Practice. Because of my passion in the secondary sector I have decided to look at ‘How GCSE doesn’t get the equal treatment to academic subjects and why this happened.’ The reason behind this is because I believe a GCSE is a GCSE no matter what subject it is achieved in. I wanted to discover people’s opinions and the Arts Councils views on GCSE dance and the importance of it. Although my main area of research is dance some of the figures from my research have been summarised over the whole of the performing arts subjects which has led me to the chosen title of performing arts in my awards specialism title. 

Does anybody think I should change to dance? Or do you think I have a clear reason behind why I went for performing arts? 

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.

Case study 3.

My thoughts on case study 3:

• Understanding that it is a business being ran, but how is it going to carry on for years if the treatment is bad. It's 2017 now and social media has a massive impact on things like this. One person can write a bad review and it can go viral and shut the place down. It may be a business but you have peoples health in your hands, rates being cheap may be good now but creating a bad reputation can ruin that very quickly.
• I don't believe the teaching methods are ethical, although the teacher may be being truthful (Denontologist) I again believe you shouldn't hurt somebody elses feelings. Not only this, but one persons opinion on a student maybe completely different to a majority of other teachers. 
• Belittling a person does not make show any morals at all. There is so many ways you can talk to a dancer, constructive critism I agree with, it makes a dancer better. But going about this situation in the correct manor would of had a different outcome.
• I am a big believer in treat people how you want to be treated. How can you get respect from your students if you don't give respect to them and there feelings.
• One ethic I use in the classroom is ensuring safety: How is this teacher ensuring this when he is putting everbody at risk of an injury? Personally as a dancer and a teacher this is not something I would put up with.

Case study 1 & 2

Case study 1: 

Ethics-

• Nobody has taken responsibilty for what happened: 'The NHS finds it notoriously hard to admit a mistake.' How is that fair? People lost lives because of this and families deserve answers.
•  Truth. Are we receiving the truth?: 'The two health secretaries, A
  lan Johnson and Andy Burnham, must convince us that they did not deny a public inquiry out
  of fear of what it might uncover about the system as a whole.' Why must they convince us? Why can we not just receive the truth?
• How can you have ethics and morals if they believe that: 'There is no statutory obligation to be honest with patients when things go wrong.'
   
  Above are three ethics I believe are important and I also believe we did not see, being truthful, taking repsonsibility, and honesty.
  
  
  Case Study 2: 
   I have read a few peoples blogs on this before writing about it and it is clear from an outsider we all believe we should help a human over a rule in a job. I also did say that we will never understand what we will actually do unless being in the situation at that moment and time. Some people will believe as a photographer he followed rules and did what was right, but personally I believe if you have any human morals how can you possibly watch somebody else suffer? I do believe the photographer Kevin Carter had morals otherwise he would never of took his own life, I just think that in the current situation he did what he thought was best for the job and followed the rules in the workplace. I have personally been in situations at work where I may not follow rules in order to help another human. That is my personal opinion, I will always help somebody in need over a rule or a job.