Lady Gowrie News
Kindy Moves builds confidence through the joy of dance
Discovering the joy of dance through the Kindy Moves program – Image courtesy Queensland Ballet
Children from a Caboolture kindergarten have discovered the joy of dance, courtesy of a program run by Queensland Ballet (QB) to enhance early learning, increase self-confidence and teach social skills.
The Kindy Moves pilot program, which was evaluated by QUT, was run over a 10-week period late last year at Lady Gowrie Caboolture East Community Kindergarten, with funding from an Arts Queensland/Education Queensland Artist in Residence Grant in collaboration with Queensland Ballet (QB) and Lady Gowrie Queensland (GowrieQLD)
Late last year the ‘Kindy Moves’ program provided children from Lady Gowrie Caboolture East Community Kindergarten with an opportunity to engage in creative movement and dance. The Kindy Moves pilot program was run over a 10-week period by members of the Queensland Ballet (QB).
Set within a framework of storytelling, each lesson prompted the children to use their imagination to explore books through dance, group games, natural movement and music. This program also worked to improve the children’s confidence, coordination, movement skills, listening, concentration and language.
“The children found the program very enjoyable and looked forward to having the two ballet instructors visit each week.” Melissa from the Lady Gowrie Caboolture East Community Kindergarten
Improving the children’s confidence, coordination, movement skills, listening, concentration and language – Image courtesy Queensland Ballet
The 48 children involved participated in one 45 minute lesson each week taught by two Queensland Ballet educators in a program linked to outcomes of the Early Years Learning Framework.
It was a real treat to participate in the Kindy Moves program with the children and the QLD Ballet’s EdSquad teaching artists, Marther Godber and Jo Stewart at one of my ECEC visits. This was the second lesson of the ten week program.
Creative exploration was easily incorporated into story time where the children were read a book and then encouraged to communicate their feelings or ideas of the story retell through movement in the inside and outside space. I was struck by how engrossed the children were, where the movement and dance provided each child with the capacity to communicate their thoughts and feelings at their own level. This was magical to watch as some of the less verbal children found confidence to express themselves.
Dance promotes physical wellbeing – Image courtesy Queensland Ballet
Dance promotes physical wellbeing by allowing children the opportunity to engage in activities that teach whole body learning, little minds, young muscles and healthy images are nurtured. Children also increase their physical capacity in areas such as control and strength, gross and fine motor skills and coordination and balance. (Li Cunxin Artistic Director QLD Ballet.)
“QUT was commissioned by Queensland Ballet to evaluate Kindy Moves and we found it had a very positive impact, especially in helping young children understand dance is for everyone, regardless of socio-economic status,” said Associate Professor Sandra Gattenhof from QUT’s Creative Industries faculty.
“The program was specifically designed for children aged four to five years, many of whom may not otherwise have access to ballet for social, economic or geographic reasons.
“The findings will be used in developing QB’s teaching approaches in early childhood learning contexts. They will provide insight into the impact of teaching artists working alongside kindergarten educators to deliver movement programs.”
Associate Professor Gattenhof said the key goals of the program were for the children to be able to express themselves creatively and use movement as an aid to understanding literacy and numeracy.
“Ideally, the children would gain an understanding of the world through dance and as such feel a greater sense of belonging and enjoyment at kindergarten,” she said.
“Our findings were very positive and definitely showed a number of cases in which Kindy Moves achieved these goals.
“For example, a teacher described watching the progress of a child with cerebral palsy. Over the course of the program, the child’s confidence in his body grew resulting in an increase in physical engagement with his environment and peers.
“Another child was described as having social-emotional difficulties related to working with peers, emotional attachment and self-isolation. By week seven, the child was gaining trust of herself and of those around her. One of their classmates, who rarely smiled spontaneously, made a small movement toward independent engagement and showed signs of enjoyment.”
Felicity Mandile, Queensland Ballet Deputy Executive Director, said an important part of the vision of the company was to enrich the lives of as many young people as possible.
“Each week we share our love of ballet in kindergartens and school settings as well as welcoming young children in to our home in West End,” Ms Mandile said.
Kindy moves kids feedback – Image courtesy Queensland Ballet
“Learning the foundational elements of this beautiful art form from highly skilled teaching artists sets them up for a lifetime dedication to the arts.”
At the Lady Gowrie Caboolture East Community Kindergarten, students were guided through a variety of group and small group movement-based activities at weekly sessions to promote collaboration and self-management.
“The teaching artists used children’s picture books to anchor the movement activities. This allowed the children to generate movement responses with the teaching artists through identification of characters from the book,” Professor Gattenhof said.
“As one of the QB teaching artists said, it can be challenging to create movement from nothing so the book characters gave the children something to base their movement on.
“The most striking evidence to emerge from the drawings and stories the children did in response to the program was the impact that the use of ballet specific words and actions had on them. The term ‘pizza feet’ as a metaphor for first position (plié) by the teaching artists was especially popular.”
Lady Gowrie teachers affirmed that involvement in the program had helped them develop their own skills and confidence in delivery arts education while the children all became members of the QB Junior Artist programs.
Source List
Amanda Weaver, QUT Media, 07 3138 3151, amanda.weaver@qut.edu.au
After hours: Rose Trapnell, 0407 585 901, media@qut.edu.au
KINDY MOVES building confidence step by step: articles on Australian Major Performing Arts Group website
Evaluation of Queensland Ballet’s Kindy Moves project: Read the QUT evaluation of the project .
A pdf version of this case study is available here.
