ABSTRACT
In Physical Education (PE) children are encouraged to be as successful as possible in all aspects of movement. The English National Curriculum (DfEE 1999) requires different aspects of PE to be included at different ages and caters for different levels of ability. Dance is one of these requirements within the programme of study for PE. At primary level, children are required to ‘respond to a range of stimuli and accompaniment’ and ‘suggest improvements based on what makes a performance effective’. As one of the three key elements of PE in the primary school, dance makes a unique contribution to children’s learning. It is the one aspect of the PE curriculum which relates to expression of feelings, thoughts and ideas through the way in which the body can move. The language used to describe the movement and the visual and dramatic way in which the body is used independently or within a group, are all exclusive to the individual performing the dance. Such expressive activities can provide a rich context for the development of language. Children can discuss and explore ideas about effectively using the body’s movements to translate their understanding. The concepts that they translate into movement may be extremely complex, possibly beyond their capacity to express in spoken or written forms. From the initial stages of the dance to the final performance, children are constantly using language to refine and extend their movement sequences. By its very nature, dance requires children to be active participants –developing, reviewing and performing their ideas. The physical nature of this process places such activities firmly within PE but, because it is a form of expression which engages children in a creative experience, it also facilitates the development of language through children’s exploration, for example, of space, shape, form, time and rhythm.
