The challenges of providing a quality certificated dance education within secondary schools - findings from a comparative study exploring the experiences of eight English and Scottish dance teachers

Whilst the fight for the inclusion of dance in schools has been an ongoing struggle, current government directives and educational policies present an even greater threat to the future of quality dance education in schools and this needs to be addressed. This paper begins to explore the certificated dance education currently on offer in the United Kingdom (UK) through teachers’ experiences of delivering the newly adapted GCSE (England) and National 5 (Scotland) dance curricula. Eight semi-structured interviews with dance teachers in England (n-4) and Scotland (n-4) were undertaken alongside documentary analysis in order to provide an initial understanding of the challenges and motivations for delivering these curricula. Smith-Autard’s Midway Model (2002) is often considered to be the exemplar of quality dance education and therefore the content, structure, and assessment approaches used in these teachers’ delivery of the curricula were compared with those advocated in this model. The findings suggest the challenges faced by teachers may differ between the two contexts and revolve around level of prescription. Regarding structure specifically, this research recommends that policy-makers might consider increasing course length for certificated dance courses and establish better dialogue with practitioners prior to introducing new course designs and during inception

Teacher Interrupted:Work Stress, Strain, and Teaching Role

A sample of 399 secondary school teachers (156 males, 243 females, 18 schools) responded to a survey questionnaire containing one measure of stress and two measures of strain. The Stressors in Teaching Scale (SITS), developed specifically to place work stress within the Scottish “teaching” context (Mulholland, 2005), gauged work stress. The General Health Questionnaire-30 (GHQ-30; Goldberg, 1972) and Glasgow Symptom Checklist (GSC; Mahmood, 1999) presented a unique opportunity to compare teachers’ perception of strain with a “general” and “clinical” population. Positive correlations were observed between work stress and strain. Perceptions of work stress and strain differed significantly according to teaching role. Quantitative job demands (e.g., “workload”) was the main predictor of strain, and middle managers, who held leadership and classroom teaching responsibilities, reported this feature of work and “changing demands” specifically, as significantly more stressful than senior managers. Middle managers’ experiences of work were reflective of a “pile-up” of stressors, indicative of quantitative and qualitative overload. Crucially, 22% of middle managers recorded strain scores (GHQ-30 case) indicative of psychiatric morbidity, and approximately 67% had experienced feelings of “personal ineffectiveness” and “depression” (GSC), normally associated with a “clinical” population. The unique interaction of “stressors” associated with teacher role, job demands, and job resources highlighted a range of risk factors (e.g., “workload,” “teaching-learning interface,” “professional ethos,” “change,” and “role”) that have the potential to affect health in the long term