Karen Evans
Project Coordinator (Plymouth)
Big Dance 2012 Schools Pledge
For “Plymouth Dance”
Photo: Kevin Heathorn
At the start of my taking over the School’s Pledge on the 19th of March, six schools had signed up to do the Big DANCE Schools Pledge, those schools were;
Plymstock School
Kelly College Preparatory School
Woodford Primary School
Pennycross Primary School
St Paul’s Roman Catholic Primary School
City College
My first job was to confirm that these schools were taking part, unfortunately Woodford and Pennycross, decided not to take part- because they were right in the middle of their stats.
I sent out an invitation email to ALL the schools in the Plymouth area, initially a detailed email referring them to the Big Dance website.
After that I sent out email concentrating on the Inset programme, with dates, this brought more results.
These schools signed up;
Brooke Green Learning Centre
Courtlands Special School
High View Primary School
Oakwood Primary
St Andrew’s Primary
Final List of Schools taking part
City College Plymouth
Stoke Damerel Community College
High View Primary School
Oakwood Primary School
Saint Paul’s Roman Catholic Primary School-
Brook Green Learning Centre
Courtlands Special School
Plymstock School
Kelly College Preparatory School
· Insets at TR2 with Claire Summers and Sarah Buckingham
Our First Inset was on Wednesday the 25th of April, we got five participants
From;
Plymstock School,
Kelly College Preparatory School
Brooke Green Learning Centre
Our Second inset was on Friday the 4th of May, we got ten participants from;
Courtlands Special School
High View Primary School
St Paul’s Roman Catholic Primary School
St Andrew’s Primary School
And an independent dance facilitator working with school from just outside Plymouth.
Attending the insets sorted out problems people had with getting the choreography, a couple of teachers reported that they could not get the video of the choreography on their school computers, because of strict school computers safeguards. They had to use their own personal system and bring the information in that way.
Also some schools did not realise that they had to input their schools information online, so I did it with them after the inset, thereby checking that everyone was signed up on the Big Dance website.
· Press Coverage
I liaised with Anne-Marie Clark press officer at TR2
She managed to get a radio interview sorted out for the 18th of May.
I spoke on Radio Devon on the 17th of May at 7.50am for about five minutes about the big dance challenge he seemed most interested in the Guinness World Record, who held it, who was taking part and when people could see it.
On the 18th of May, I spoke to a reporter at Plymouth Herald who wrote a report which came out on Saturday the 19th of May. (See below)
Students take part in dance record bid
HUNDREDS of children across the city put their dancing shoes on to take part in an attempt to break a world record for dance.
Children from City College Plymouth, Oakwood Primary, Highview Primary, St Paul's Roman Catholic Primary, Stoke Damerel Community College, Brook Green Centre for Learning, and Courtlands Special School gathered on the Piazza, in the city centre, yesterday lunchtime to take part in a five minute dance routine as part of the worldwide warm-up to the Big Dance 2012, part of the London 2012 Festival
The Big Dance event was coordinated locally by Plymouth Dance with children from Kelly College Preparatory School and Plymstock School performing the dance piece simultaneously in their schools.
Karen Evans, local coordinator of the Big Dance and director of Plymouth Dance, said: "We had over 200 children dancing on the piazza, with over 1,000 children taking part across the city in total. It all went well, the weather stayed dry and the atmosphere was great."
Over at Plymstock School staff had been busy teaching all Year 7, 8 and 9 students the choreography in their dance lessons and anticipated that about 700 students performed on the day.
Nearby primary schools, who are partnered with Plymstock, including Pomphlett, Elburton, Dunstone and Hooe also joined in the challenge.
Ms Evans said she was hoping to find out whether the record had been broken in the coming few weeks.”
Another report went in the Evening Herald on Wednesday the 23rd of May
(See below)
School joins in record attempt
HUNDREDS of schoolchildren gathered to help break a world record.
Children from Plymstock School, and its partner primaries Pomphlett, Elburton, Dunstone and Hooe, gathered on the school's 3G pitch to take part in a five minute dance routine as part of the worldwide warm-up to the Big Dance 2012, part of the London 2012 Festival.
1.
Alison Brown, dance teacher at the school, said: "The whole thing has been a fantastic opportunity for students of different ages and abilities to come together and celebrate the school community, the Olympic values and the amazing opportunities that the London 2012 Olympics bring to this country."
The Big Dance was an attempt to break a Guinness World Record for the most amount of people dancing the same dance at the same time, but in different venues. The current record is held by the Netherlands with 264,188 people and 1,472 locations.
The event took place on Friday and it is estimated around 700 children gathered at Plymstock School to participate.
Radio Devon also attended the event on the 18th of May, and interviewed children and teachers who were taking part, all was very positive, but they did make a mistake in their report they said that the record attempt was on the 7th -15th of July, 2012.
I do not know how they got this information only that they must have not read the press report properly, that Anne-Marie Clark had given them.
· Big Dance 2012 Schools Pledge event on the 18th of May
I told everyone to come as near to 12pm as they could.
We had a stage for Claire the Professional dancer plus a headset, to help rally the participants in a suitable space, for the rehearsal which we did at 12.30pm.
The schools which came to the Piazza were;
City College Plymouth- (14-students)
Stoke Damerel Community College-(70-students)
High View Primary School-(11 students)
Oakwood Primary School-(18 -students)
Saint Paul’s Roman Catholic Primary School-(15-students)
Brook Green Learning Centre –(24-students)
Courtlands Special School-(94-students)
Total dancing in Piazza=246
Schools that performed the challenge in their own school
Plymstock School (659)
Kelly College Preparatory School (160)
Oakwood Primary School (281)
High View (254)
Number of students and teachers performing the School pledge in their schools in Plymouth
Total of students=1354
Number of students and teachers performing the School pledge across Plymouth
Total of students=1600
· Feedback on the Event
High View School
Hi Karen, firstly I wanted to say a big thank you to you and the team here in Plymouth, the inset we attended was really informative and helpful, the email and contact about the event was clear and coherent, any queries I had were well answered and on the day we turned up feeling like we knew what we had to do. The children absolutely loved being a part of it too.
On a larger scale, organisation wise, the dance was rather frustrating, whilst I think that the choreography should be challenging, the movement on this phrase was extremely hard for primary children to learn.
I am a dancer and I have many talented dancers in my school but even so they struggled with sections of the dance, even with adaptation (the adaptations taught by Jess and Claire were very useful- that is by no means my issue) the fact that we had to approach the dance with adaptations in mind from the start says a lot about its accessibility I feel. This feedback, on difficulty, also comes from all my colleagues at High View who struggled to get to grips with the routine and found the repeating section confusing as they seemed to lack logic in the way the repeated.
The date of the event, whilst it is important to tie in with the torch relay and the cultural Olympiad the organisers chose SAT's week as the week for the attempt to take place, this meant that year 6 were busy doing these tests and could not participate in the weeks building up to the event as they had to first focus on SATs, I think this is a shame as year 6 post SATs love having things, project based, like this to do, and with such a complicated dance the opportunity to work with the oldest children in the school would have been useful.
The time of the event- 1pm, I have had feedback, mainly from school kitchen staff, that the time of the event was challenging, choosing a mid day point is understandable to avoid extreme early morning or evening dancing for those in other countries or for ourselves, but 1pm is right in the middle of lunchtime and to facilitate the attempt in school and ensure everyone was ready to dance and not eating we scheduled our lunchtime to 15 minutes earlier, feedback was that had it been 2pm or 11.30am, breaktime, it would have been much less disrupting to the school day.
I don't want to close on a negative so I will just reiterate again how much our children enjoyed the experience, particularly those who came into town to take part, the opportunity to be included in both a World record attempt and to be a part of the cultural Olympiad is a wonderful thing and we were really pleased to be asked to do it, Plymouth's organisation and leadership of the event was great, we would be interested in similar projects in the future- though maybe not such a complicated routine.
Courtlands Special School
Hi Karen
Many thanks for helping organising such an event. It was great and we
all enjoyed preparing for it. I am so glad that my college and I
decided to take the whole school. Initially, I think the staff thought
we were nuts! It has been a great chance for the whole school to get
together everyday and work towards something that was huge. The
feedback from all staff and parents/carers on the day and at the event
was encouraging and enthusiastic. Some pupils are asking when we are
going for Britain’s got talent!
Thanks again. Please can you keep me posted on other dance events
across the city?
Plymstock School
We had a head count of 659 in the end. (We are in the Herald today!) The kids really enjoyed it and it also it went down very well with staff members who were very impressed with the commitment of the kids, many commenting on how great it was to see some of the more “challenging” students really becoming involved and focussed. A great whole school event.
Feedback:
· Music could have been more modern and upbeat…something a bit more “charty” to get the kids going.
· Choreography was a little complicated in some places for the lower abilities
· Video was good but the lead male dancer was a little bit too “cheesy” and so put off a lot of the boys. Perhaps another time they need to use a more accessible male role model, who is maybe not quite as “trained” so the kids can relate to them?
Although the process was long we got there in the end and the actual event was amazing to see all the kids participating! Thanks for all your help and support and maybe see you soon around Plymouth.
Stoke Damerel Community College
70 SDCC students took part.
Brilliant experience. Was lovely to get so many kids dancing together. My year 10 dancers learnt the dance and taught the year 8 students during dance lessons so had a great experience of leading.
The kids enjoyed being part of it
Kelly College Preparatory School
We all enjoyed it-even the head! Nicky was pleased she had attended workshop as it was do complex. Well done on spurring us in and keeping us on track
Many thanks
Kelly prep
Maybe a bit more notice of workshops -before Easter break?
Brook Green Learning Centre
All good
Oakwood Primary School
Hi Karen
Thanks for organizing such a great event. The children loved the spectacle of seeing themselves on big screen and the public performance. Also the inclusion element was a real positive. Topped off with a supportive and smiling audience.
The nature of the event was a record attempt and after this was done it seemed a bit of an anti-climax. Yes we could wait for 45 mins for the coverage of the transfer of the torch but 14 children running around the Piazza would have bbeen a nightmare. It needed a follow-up to make it a real event....more dance e.g Wake & shake type routines which children can latch onto quickly. What about some local youth bands(rock and , street artists e.g jugglers etc.
When you've got 400 willing people together let's have a party!
Comments on “This is Plymouth” website
· by valmillar
Saturday, May 19 2012, 3:42PM
“My grandson from Brook Green school took part in this and I thought it was brilliant, wish there had been a few more 'photo's 'though.Well done to all the children who took part!”
·
by Jannerbloke
Saturday, May 19 2012, 12:51PM
“Pity they didn't do a flash dance like that one on YouTube of Antwerp Central Station.”
· by emmaplymuk
Saturday, May 19 2012, 11:22AM
“my daughter took part in this she goes to stoke damerel Community college it was a fantastic dance they all did very well”
My feedback
The task of getting schools interested seemed a bit daunting at first as schools can be notoriously hard to connect with. However, I was very well-supported by staff and contacts from Plymouth Dance, The Theatre Royal education department and press staff and the Barbican theatre, who shared contacts.
The only problem I had was with the South -West Big Dance coordination and the national Big Dance team, who only responded to one of my emails, but after two and a half weeks which meant that our invite to schools had to go out after the Easter Holidays which impeded the amount of schools that I could get on board. I know that it can be hard to respond immediately, but I sent four other emails about the certain protocols that had to be followed, which they did not reply to.