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NetWERK! Next dance teacher forum on Sunday 28th October, 2012
NetWERK is DanceWerk’s monthly networking event especially for freelance dance teachers. We aim to create a community of dance teachers who share ideas and best practices with each other. We provide attendees with training in aspects of teaching and being self employed that are not covered at dance college or on teacher training courses. We don’t keep our ideas to ourselves – we SHARE them!
Each monthly forum will cover a different aspect of teaching and learning or being self employed/freelance. Every forum is a chance for our dance teachers to network and make contacts with others in the industry.
Join us for our next event on Sunday 28th October, 2012:
“HOW TO EARN MORE MONEY AS A DANCE TEACHER”
- Learn 10 strategies for earning more money as a dance teacher
- Think ‘outside the box’ of the traditional dance school model
- Discover ways to retain students as well as attracting more
Find out what some of our previous attendees had to say:
“Really enjoyed the session. Meeting people and learning new techniques.” Emma Lucas, Maidenhead.
“I really enjoyed being a part of this first session. I feel very included as a potential employee of DanceWerk now, and it was overall a very enjoyable experience.” Anonymous, Reading.
“Really good session and made me think about how to deal with problem classes as well! Good opportunity to network and meet other teachers! Thanks!” Anonymous, Reading.
“The session was very interesting and thought provoking. Enabled me to begin to think outside the box and maybe adjust the way i teach my sessions. Behaviour Management is very important in maintaining a successful, safe and comfortable working environment.” Maryka Debra, London.
“Cerys provided us with an indepth insight into how to include children with special needs into a dance class.” Jolene, Reading
Find out how networking can be invaluable to your development as a dance teacher and dance business owner:
Being self employed is lots of fun but can be a lonely business at times. Meet like minded individuals at our dance teacher forum and get the support you need. We have a range of people coming to the forum – from dancers looking to make the transition into teaching to dancers who have set up their own successful dance businesses. If you would like to come down to our next session and find out what it’s all about, your first session is FREE so you have nothing to lose!
NetWERK!: How To Earn More Money As A Dance Teacher
Sunday 28th October, 2012, 2.15pm – 4.45pm
RISC (Room 3) 35-39 London Street Reading Town Centre West Berkshire
(Free parking available – access via East Street)
What you will get:
* Presentation on strategies for making more money as a dance teacher * Resource Pack * Tea and coffee refreshments * Networking opportunities with like minded dance teachers and dance companies * Opportunity to promote your own dance business via online video to all of DanceWerk’s contacts
GET ALL THIS FOR JUST £10!
**Only 10 spaces available** Book your place now by clicking on the button below.
New members book your FREE place now by emailing cerys@dancewerk.co.uk All places must be pre-booked.
Keep dancing!
Cerys x
WANTED: Passionate dance teachers to spread happiness in Berkshire.
Are you mad about dance? Does the sound of teaching passionate dancers and creating inspirational choreography sound like a dream? Then you have come to the right place.
Here’s why: We’re a fast growing dance teacher supply service and we’re looking for a few ambitious, like-minded, student-focused, superstars to add to our dancing team. If you’ve ever dreamed about what it would be like to be a part of a movement that will change the way Berkshire dances, one creative step at a time, then reach out now.
Warning: We are a very committed company. If you’re just looking for any old job or a little extra cash, this opportunity isn’t for you. If you are committed to your professional development and want to be part of a service that will bring out your best through additional work, training and networking opportunities, you may be exactly who we’re looking for.
Go here and fill out our online application and tell us who you are and why you’re perfect to join us.
http://www.dancewerk.co.uk/supply_service.php
NetWERK! Next Dance Teacher Forum On 30th September, 2012
NetWERK is DanceWerk’s monthly networking event especially for freelance dance teachers. We aim to create a community of dance teachers who share ideas and best practices with each other. We provide attendees with training in aspects of teaching and being self employed that are not covered at dance college or on teacher training courses. We don’t keep our ideas to ourselves – we SHARE them!
Each monthly forum will cover a different aspect of teaching and learning or being self employed/freelance. Every forum is a chance for our dance teachers to network and make contacts with others in the industry.
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September’s NetWERK event will include training on ‘Inclusion In The Dance Class’ – worth £47
With an estimated 5th of all children in UK mainstream education being identified as having Special Educational Needs (SEN), it’s more than likely you will have children with diagnosed or undiagnosed needs in your dance classes. Do you know how to get the best out of these children and give them equal access to your dance teaching?
* Discover how to include children with special needs in your mixed ability dance class without needing to drastically change what you teach
*Discover the attributes of many recognised Special Educational Needs and how to provide for them in your dance class
*Discover ways to plan for differentiation in your dance class to ensure ALL dancers can access the learning, no matter what their needs are
Having spent 5 years as a primary school teacher (3 years in UK classes with over 70% Special Educational Needs and 2 years in classes overseas with 98% English As An Additional Language), I am passionate about inclusion and have spent the last 3 years running a dance school with an inclusive ethos, open to all abilities. During my primary training and teaching experiences, I wrote case studies on Autistic Spectrum Disorders and created Individual Provision Plans for children with ASD, ADHD, EBD, EAL and a range of other Special Educational Needs, whilst liaising with Educational Psychologists, Speech and Language Therapists, Behaviour Therapists and other professionals. During my freelance dance teaching experiences, I have applied my knowledge to teaching dancers with learning and/or physical disabilities in schools for children with special needs and organisations for adults with learning disabilities. I recognise that this is a topic that dance teachers may not have studied in great detail at dance college and may not be confident with the strategies they can apply to their teaching to achieve optimum results from all dancers by providing for a range of needs in their classes. I want to share my knowledge of inclusive practice with you all at the next NetWERK event.
Find out what some of our previous NetWERK attendees had to say:
“Really enjoyed the session. Meeting people and learning new techniques.” Emma Lucas, Maidenhead.
“I really enjoyed being a part of this first session. I feel very included as a potential employee of DanceWerk now, and it was overall a very enjoyable experience.” Anonymous, Reading.
“Really good session and made me think about how to deal with problem classes as well! Good opportunity to network and meet other teachers! Thanks!” Anonymous, Reading.
“The session was very interesting and thought provoking. Enabled me to begin to think outside the box and maybe adjust the way i teach my sessions. Behaviour Management is very important in maintaining a successful, safe and comfortable working environment.” Maryka Debra, London.
Find out how networking can be invaluable to your development as a dance teacher and dance business owner:
Being self employed is lots of fun but can be a lonely business at times. Meet like minded individuals at our dance teacher forum and get the support you need. We have a range of people coming to the forum – from dancers looking to make the transition into teaching to dancers who have set up their own successful dance businesses. If you would like to come down to our next session and find out what it’s all about, your first session is FREE so you have nothing to lose!
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NetWERK!: Inclusion In The Dance Class
Sunday 30th September, 2012
2.15 – 4.45pm
RISC (Room 3)
35-39 London Street
Reading Town Centre
West Berkshire
(Free parking available – access via East Street)
What you will get:
* Training on ‘Inclusion In The Dance Class’ – worth £47
* Training resource pack – worth £7
* Tea and coffee refreshments
* Networking opportunities with like minded dance teachers and dance companies – priceless!
* Opportunity to promote your own dance business via online video to all of DanceWerk’s contacts
GET ALL THIS FOR JUST £10!
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**Only 10 spaces available** Book your place now by clicking on the button below.
New members book your FREE place now by emailing cerys@dancewerk.co.uk
All places must be pre-booked.
Keep dancing!
Cerys x
PS. October’s NetWERK event will include a presentation on Tax Issues For Dance Teachers, led by our first guest speaker. Discover the differences between being a sole trader and being a limited company and how these can benefit you as a dance teacher. Discover what you can do to save money when calculating your expenses as a dance teacher. Stay tuned for further details on this essential session, coming soon! 
Are you using non-verbal communication to teach dance?
Being off work due to a recent throat operation, faced with being unable to talk as often or as freely as I would like while I recover, the experience has got me thinking all about communication and the importance of effective NON-VERBAL communication as a dance teacher.
So what is non-verbal communication?
I came to realise the importance of non-verbal communication during my 2 years of teaching children with English as an Additional Language in Bangkok, Thailand. Non-verbal communication is all about use of gesture, body language, facial expression, eye contact and visual aids to get your message across. Even when you are talking to someone normally, non-verbal communication accounts for roughly two thirds of the conversation.
How can we use non-verbal communication?
As dance teachers we can use positive body language to create a great first impression when securing a new teaching contract or meeting a new class for the first time. Positive body language can include a slight lean forward, great posture and eye contact.
But how do we use non-verbal communication in our teaching?
We can use non-verbal cueing systems to manage behaviour within our dance classes. Training our dancers to stop and listen when they hear a specific sound or see a specific hand gesture, for example, means that we can gain the attention of our classes without needing to raise our voice above chatter or music – as dance teachers we should always be taking care of our voices and finding ways to use them less. We can also simply stand in front of a noisy class doing absolutely nothing but making meaningful eye contact until they begin to settle or beckon to the misbehaving child we want to reposition and point them in the direction of where we want them to stand. (Check out my previous video about behaviour management in the dance class: http://www.dancewerk.co.uk/blog/behaviour-management-in-the-dance-class/)
We can use gesturing, such as pointing, to signal which direction we want our dancers to travel in and which foot we want our dancers to start on, for example. We can also use gestures such as head nods or hand claps to signal when the dancer should start. A great way to count dancers in (a method I use to protect my voice), instead of the usual ’5,6,7,8′ is to use 4 claps. Train your dancers to respond to this by initially introducing the claps on top of the counts and eventually taking the verbal counts away.
SEN children with a range of needs respond well to non-verbal communication, particularly those on the Autistic Spectrum and of course those with hearing impairments or English as an Additional Language. Of course, dance itself can be a medium of communication that is non-verbal, and those who have difficulty with verbal communication may well benefit from the positive effects of expression through dance. We all have different preferred learning styles and those who learn best visually will also benefit from this. (Check out my previous blog post about learning styles and dance: http://www.dancewerk.co.uk/blog/how-do-your-dancers-learn/)
We can use visual aids to increase understanding of what we are teaching and support those with language or communication difficulties. This also makes our lessons fully interactive for all our dancers despite their needs. For example, we can use picture cards for different shapes or movements we want our dancers to create or vocabulary cards to emphasise a particular step or movement’s technical name. We can display our class learning intentions or targets visually, as well as reminders of rules that are easily referred to around the studio or dance space.
Note the reference to dance in the following explanation of the history of Non-Verbal Communication studies:
The first scientific study of nonverbal communication was Charles Darwin’s book The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals.[3] He argued that all mammals reliably show emotion in their faces. Seventy years later Silvan Tomkins (1911–1991) began his classic studies on human emotions in Affects Imagery Consciousness volumes 1-4. Rudolf Laban (1879–1958) and Warren Lamb (1923-) raised body movement analysis in the world of dance to a high level. Studies now range across a number of fields, including, linguistics, semiotics and social psychology. Another large influence in nonverbal communication was Birdwhistell. “ Anthropologist Ray Birdwhistell pioneered the original study of nonverbal communication—what he called ‘kinesics.’ He estimated that the average person actually speaks words for a total of about ten or eleven minutes a day and that the average sentence takes only about 2.5 seconds. Birdwhistell also estimated we can make and recognize around 250,000 facial expressions.”
(Source: Wikipedia, August 2012)
Ultimately, effective communication includes a mixture of both verbal and non-verbal communication in nearly all cases. How are you using non-verbal communication in your dance classes? Post a comment below to let me know
Cerys x
Behaviour Management In The Dance Class
If you missed our dance teacher forum networking event at the weekend, you also missed out on some free training on how to manage behaviour in your dance classes…..but don’t worry I’ve recapped a few of the main points from the training in my latest free video: 5 Ways To Manage Behaviour In Your Dance Class. You can watch the video here now:
Please leave me a comment below and let me know how you manage behaviour in your dance class.
Keep dancing!
Cerys x
P.s. If you are now kicking yourself that you missed our free networking event, don’t worry – we’re going to do it all again in September – and we’re going to let you attend your first one for free! Watch this space for further details
5 Reasons Why Dance Teachers Should Network
NetWERK! Dance Teacher Forum, July 2012
NetWERK is DanceWerk’s monthly networking event especially for freelance dance teachers. We aim to create a community of dance teachers who share ideas and best practices with each other. We provide attendees with training in aspects of teaching and being self employed that are not covered at dance college or on teacher training courses. We don’t keep our ideas to ourselves – we SHARE them!
July 15th was our first ever dance teacher forum. We provided our dance teachers with training on an issue highlighted as an area of interest – Behaviour Management In The Dance Class. Each monthly forum will cover a different aspect of teaching and learning or being self employed/freelance. Every forum is a chance for our dance teachers to network and make contacts with others in the industry.
Here’s what some of our attendees had to say:
“Really enjoyed the session. Meeting people and learning new techniques.” Emma Lucas, Maidenhead.
“I really enjoyed being a part of this first session. I feel very included as a potential employee of DanceWerk now, and it was overall a very enjoyable experience.” Anonymous, Reading.
“Really good session and made me think about how to deal with problem classes as well! Good opportunity to network and meet other teachers! Thanks!” Anonymous, Reading.
“The session was very interesting and thought provoking. Enabled me to begin to think outside the box and maybe adjust the way i teach my sessions. Behaviour Management is very important in maintaining a successful, safe and comfortable working environment.” Maryka Debra, London.
Being self employed is lots of fun but can be a lonely business at times. Meet like minded individuals at our dance teacher forum and get the support you need. We have a range of people coming to the forum – from dancers looking to make the transition into teaching to dancers who have set up their own successful dance businesses. If you would like to come down to our next session and find out what it’s all about, your first session is FREE so you have nothing to lose!
Email me now to find out when, where and how! Contact me at Cerys@dancewerk.co.uk
Keep dancing!
Cerys x
Ps. I thought you might like to see for yourself – watch this video now to find out what people are saying about this DanceWerk event! http://youtu.be/nkLTUo0EJxo
Dance Teacher Forum
Our very first dance teacher forum is scheduled to take place on Sunday 15th July from 2.30-4.30pm at RISC in Reading town centre.
RISC
35-39 London Street
Reading
Berkshire
RG1 4PS
Our meeting will be held above the RISC shop, next to the Global Cafe. There is limited parking available at RISC but the Oracle Car Park is just across the road. If coming by public transport, Reading train station is just a 10 minute walk through town.
NetWERK
Whilst it’s lots of fun, being self employed can also be a lonely business at times – become part of a support network of local freelance dance teachers and share ideas and best practices with like minded people. There will be opportunities to introduce yourself at the beginning of the session and further networking opportunities at the end of the session.
Training
We want to give our supply teachers and those interested in working with us training in areas that they feel they require support with. Our first meet up will include a presentation on ‘Behaviour Management In The Dance Class.’
I had extensive training in the theories and practices of positive behaviour management throughout my years as a primary school teacher in challenging schools prior to running my dance business. This gave me a great start to managing busy dance classes with children and young people from a range of backgrounds without always having the support from other staff members in the same building. I recognise that this is an area that other dance teachers may not have had training in or feel confident with when presented with challenging behaviour either from groups or individuals within their classes. I want to share with you my knowledge on establishing and maintaining a positive learning environment and how to deal with potential behaviour issues before they escalate, allowing you to get on and do what you love – teaching dance – without the unnecessary interruptions!
There will also be opportunities for you to share your own experiences and ideas on best practice during this session and also comment on what you would like training on in future sessions.
DanceWerk Q & A
The dance teacher forum will also be an opportunity for you to find out more about DanceWerk and how you could benefit from the services we provide, including additional work opportunities, further training and qualifications. I will be on hand at the end of the session to answer any questions you may have about DanceWerk – essentially how we can help you make the most out of being a freelance dance teacher and earn more money in the process!
Get all this for FREE! Book your place now.
Our very first dance teacher forum will be absolutely free of charge. Being our first event, we need to know provisional numbers by Thursday 28th June so please kindly RSVP to cerys@dancewerk.co.uk if you would like to attend. Please do forward this on to any other dance teachers you feel would benefit from this service. I look forward to your reply.
Keep dancing!
Cerys