'The Elements' - Yeoman Park Special School

Yeoman Park worked with a dancer Debi Hedderwick in a partnership to explore and develop physical, visual, and auditory sense in relationship with rhythm and different styles of music.

The partnership worked with the practitioner over a period of 8 weeks to explore creative dance in order to cross curriculum boundaries and inform new ideas and approaches to teaching music across the special educational needs (SEN) curriculum.

The dancer worked with three classes (approximately 24 students, 12 education support staff, 3 teachers and occasional parent/governor). Eight children involved in the programme of work had profound and multiple learning difficulties, eight have autistic spectrum disorders, and eight have both.

These sessions were supported by the in house ICT multimedia technician, with a view to sustain the use of media and technology to support this work in future.

School aims

• To raise teaching and learning standards for persons with profound and multiple learning difficulties (PMLD) through creative arts practice.
• To test the current Creative Partnerships evaluation model in a special educational needs (SEN) context.
• To develop ICT and multimedia opportunities for both learners and staff.
• Collecting evidence in a variety of ways including digital and video recordings.

Partner aims

• To teach dance techniques to staff and students as a creative learning experience.
• To de-mystify 'improvisation' as a tool for curriculum and subject delivery
• To create sustainable aesthetic experiences within the timetable.