Performing Arts

Primary School Performing Arts Hour

This year in Primary School all students from Kindergarten to Year 6 will engage in a weekly experience called Performing Arts Hour, and I will be leading a team of teachers to deliver this exciting initiative in the Primary school.

The vision of Performing Arts Hour for the Primary School in 2019 is to design a deeper learning experience for students to allow them to develop their 21st Century skills through creative and fictional settings that explore real concepts relevant to their world – concepts such as cultural diversity, empathy, globalisation and sustainability. Students will develop ensemble skills through creative play in song, movement/dance and drama, giving them the opportunity to nurture 21st century skills such as collaboration, creativity, citizenship, critical thinking, character and communication.

The benefits of learning through multidisciplinary performing art forms recognise that students come to the classroom with varying abilities and dispositions. Inquiry based learning through a performing arts platform provides students with a forum to think differently, work together and gives them agency over their learning.

“Creativity is simply the process of having original ideas that have value”- Sir Ken Robinson

In our contemporary classrooms here at SCAS, we are preparing our students for the world outside of it. Our classrooms, therefore, need to nourish our students’ creative and innovative thinking. Cultivating a creative classroom allows students the freedom to inquire and explore concepts. The best way to learn how to be creative and innovative is to allow for divergent thinking. Thinking differently allows students to generate ideas that have value in a creative and unstructured manner. At SCAS, our Performing Arts Hour is a creative space where students learn through being creators of collaborative projects that are relevant and important to them.

The New South Wales Education Standards Authority (NESA) Creative Arts Syllabus for Kindergarten to Year 6 will be delivered using pedagogical approaches such as multidisciplinary learning experiences and transdisciplinary approaches providing some links across the Performing Arts with other Key Learning Areas such as Science, English and History. Through creative play in movement, dance, drama and music students will have the opportunity to grapple with real world issues in a fictional delivery. Issues such as empathy, globalisation, sustainability and stewardship are some of the concepts our Kindergarten to Year 6 Students will examine.

From time to time there will be opportunities for a sharing of works from the Performing Arts Hour with families and friends.

The structure of the Performing Arts Hour includes:

  • A central concept or theme that links to each year group’s classroom curriculum and provides a shared focus for a variety of concepts, themes or world issues.
  • Learning a relevant song and movement.
  • Exploring the central concept, theme, and world issues through a variety of dramatic forms that explore making and performing drama.
  • Composing and performing dances that explore the concept, theme, or world issue.

In the Performing Arts Hour, students will have more opportunity to reimagine their world, create innovative solutions to real issues whilst building confidence and emotional intelligence.

“Give all children access to a world of possibilities” – Dr Laura A. Jana

Mrs Isabella Mistry
Director of Performing Arts
St Columba Anglican School
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