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

Early career teachers’ learning about promoting health and wellbeing:a narrative study

In Scotland, as with many other countries, the requirement to promote pupil health and wellbeing is the responsibility of all, yet little is known about how early career teachers learn to meet this responsibility. This two-year study followed five secondary school teachers from their Professional Graduate Diploma in Education (PGDE) year to the end of their first year in school as probationary teachers. A narrative approach was adopted to explore how participants’ conceptualisations of health and wellbeing developed over time, and to gain insight into what contributed to this development. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews. Following this, and guided by the work of Rodríguez-Dorans and Jacobs, narrative portraits were constructed for each participant. The narratives revealed that participants’ conceptualisation of health and wellbeing deepened between the PGDE year and the end of their induction year. In particular, participants developed a broader understanding of relationships through their induction year, with greater attention paid to their role, and the role of other teachers, in developing positive relationships. Furthermore, across both contexts, the participants revealed that the process of learning how to promote health and wellbeing was multi-faceted and complex, with various life experiences and different schools adding to this complexity. For the future, we recommend that teacher educators working in the domain of health and wellbeing begin with the teachers – exploring their personal and professional identities – past, current and future, and the various ways they connect with their lives and learning in schools

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