EFDSS Education Department |
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EFDSS Education runs educational and participatory arts projects, classes, workshops, seminars and other events, for children, young people and adults of all ages and backgrounds. Drawing from the diverse traditional and folk arts of England and the British Isles – including dance, music, song, games, rhymes, storytelling, drama, traditions and visual arts and more - projects reach participants in schools and colleges, and informal community settings in London and other parts of England. It also supports the continuing
professional development of, and exchange between, artists and animateurs
from folk and other arts backgrounds and provides INSET for teachers
and other professional staff.
Staff: : Rachel Elliott (contact) – Education Director: Thanks to funding from the Paul Hamlyn Foundation, EFDSS has created the new post of Education Director, to ensure that the Society develops a significant, national education programme which is cohesive, strategic and dynamic, forging links with key agencies and government departments as well as with regional and local agencies. Rachel took up the post in July 2008.
EFDSS
Education Programmes: Funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF), Take 6 is an 18-month archival, educational and community project which will be completed in August 2009. Through Take 6 EFDSS is archiving and conserving six unique manuscript collections and making them more widely accessible to the public, through digitising and putting the collections on line. (For more details on the archiving aspect of the project please contact the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library. Four of the six collections
are: The other two collections
are being used as the source material for projects in primary schools
and communities in Hampshire and Lancashire where the songs were originally
noted, namely: Learning resources are being developed with all participating schools investigating and demonstrating how these heritage materials can be best used to support the curriculum and other key contemporary educational concerns. These resources will be made available online in summer 2009. The complementary community-based programme is being developed in partnership with regional folk agencies and other local bodies, increasing community access to the Take 6 collections by touring display stands in community locations in Hampshire, Lancashire and Southwark and at major folk and community festivals. Folk arts practitioners
involved in Take 6 this autumn are: Earlier in 2008 EFDSS Education successfully piloted the use of the materials in London, in conjunction with Redriff Primary School in Southwark which has a history of promoting singing games – an annual festival there in the 1960s led to an album of recordings on the prestigious Topic Records label. Work at the school was multi-layered encompassing a “Singing Games” project with all classes, from Reception to Year 6, and a complementary oral history and reminiscence project with local older people.
The project concluded with a wonderful afternoon ‘sharing’ event in the school playground where all children took part in performing past and present playground singing and clapping games, some children performing Maypole dances, and ending with a mini ceilidh for all children, staff, parents and visitors to the rousing music of the folk band Faustus.
Living
Song Three student composers
will work directly from source material (introduced in the workshop),
just as Ralph Vaughan Williams did a century ago, to create new work
based on folk melody and text to be performed (alongside Vaughan Williams
folk song settings) by RCMJD Chamber Choir directed by Joy Hill on
13th December in the Great Hall, Sherfield Building, Imperial College,
London. Other
EFDSS programmes: Teaching
& Learning Resources:
Future Developments: Camden
schools
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