Melissa Brown

" I’m talking about the equal importance of dance with the other arts, languages, mathematics, sciences and the humanities in the general education of every child."  (Ken Robinson) The above quote is taken from Sir Ken Robinson. A man who I have only recently been educated on, but nevertheless, someone who I now consider to be a leader in the way of understanding the importance of creativity in a child's development, but maybe more so, the role of which creativity plays within education. Robinson was a strong believer that the arts and humanities were well deserving of a place within education and that schools often have too strong a focus on STEM subjects, consequently undervaluing the creativity a child receives from studying the arts. However what I found crucial to discover was that Robinson certainly didn't appear to be claiming that the frequency and intensity of subjects such as English and Maths should be classified as unimportant, but rather just that subject...

The focus of my research study will be based on exploring the value of dance within education. When first discussing our 'little wonders' with Helen, this immediately jumped out at me as being one of my little wonders for various reasons:  a. I was lucky enough to attend a secondary school which had a large focus on vocational subjects, one of which being dance, which I studied as a BTEC within my GCSE options. I had already studied dance outside of a school setting for many years, but I guess at the time I took it for granted that I was able to study dance within an educational setting and explore other genres such as contemporary dance which I wasn't so familiar with. It was only when I spoke to my younger sister about her school experience at a grammar school that I released subjects such as dance weren't offered as part of the national curriculum at all schools. This got me wondering why? or why not?  b. I have had some experience working as a dance coach within pri...