Education

The Royal Ballet School has launched a digital membership programme to widen access for those wanting to support its operation.

The school is offering memberships of £65 a year - or £45 for Young Members - extending the options for support to young philanthropists or those based overseas.

The new programme is part of a push to raise funds vital to ensuring the organisation’s survival. Funding from the Department of Education has remained at a standstill while running costs have risen, the school said, leaving a shortfall that requires it to raise over £1m in donations annually.

Members and Young Members will be offered exclusive behind-the-scenes access to ballet classes via Zoom, a bi-monthly newsletter with photos, videos and stories, and discounts on Royal Ballet School shop and video-on-demand products. 

The funds raised will contribute to the school’s General Fund, which is used to cover the running costs of its studios, facilities and accommodation, to fund healthcare provision, to pay salaries and to maintain its historic buildings.

The National Theatre has announced its Let’s Play programme is now free to all state primary schools across the UK.

The programme pilot was launched back in 2017, but the National Theatre is now offering it to all state primary schools for free to enable more teachers to use theatre, drama and creativity in support of learning across the curriculum.
 
Let’s Play offers learning resources and training opportunities for primary school teachers covering three key areas: using theatre and drama to support learning (Let’s Learn), creating performances in schools (Let’s Perform) and watching high-quality theatre productions with related resources through the National Theatre Primary Collection (Let’s Watch).
 
For the first time, Let’s Play is also offering free online and in-person professional training for teachers to help them reconnect with their own creativity and develop new skills.

The University of Chichester is to become the first institute in the UK to have its Dance Science degree course accredited by the British Association of Sport and Exercise Sciences (BASES).

The degree will combine dance practice with scientific research approaches to examine what happens to our bodies and minds when we dance.
 
Offered as "a relatively new discipline", the Dance Science degree will include physiology, psychology and biomechanics as applied to dance practice. Students will then use this knowledge to help improve performance potential, reduce injury risk and enhance wellbeing.
 
Programme Leader for Dance Science at the university, Edel Quin, said: "We are delighted to be the first undergraduate degree in dance science to become a BASES endorsed course. This is a testament to the calibre of our dance science programme, and the unique integration between Dance and Sport and Exercise Science. 
 
"Our programme is a leader in this area of study and this endorsement, together with our existing CIMPSA endorsement and links to Safe in Dance International and the International Association for Dance Medicine & Science, ensures that we are providing our students with the knowledge and skills to meet professional and technical standards for success in dance, dance science or sport and exercise science professions."
 
The course can be studied as a 3-year BSc or a 4-year integrated Masters (MSci) in Dance Science.

The Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) is expanding its partnership scheme with schools across England to five new locations.

It will start working with pupils in Skegness, Coventry, Peterborough, Corby and Hartlepool to help them become more familiar with Shakespeare's work.

The RSC's Associate Schools Programme currently includes 26 areas of structural disadvantage across England, where opportunity in culture and art is low and where educational attainment and employment opportunities lag behind the national average.

The programme reaches 135,000 children and young people each year, helping them to build language skills by engaging with the richness of the Bard’s plays. It also aims to show them the range of job opportunities possible in the theatre sector.

The RSC aims to accelerate language acquisition, raise aspiration and widen creativity and critical thinking. 

A study is under way to assess the programme’s overall impact but teachers have reported that “children who weren't previously meeting expected standards now consistently are – because of how they're taught Shakespeare”, Jacqui O'Hanlon, the RSC's director of learning and national partnership, told the BBC.

RSC actors perform in the schools, as well as at local theatres involved in the programme, and the company trains teachers at participating schools in techniques used by actors and directors in rehearsals.

They guide children in acting, exploring characters and their language choices, and analysing the words to find their meanings.

“The language development of a child by age five is still the greatest predictor of whether that child can escape poverty in later life,” O'Hanlon said.

Children “get really curious about the possibilities of the meaning of particular words, rather than finding them scary or confusing”, she added.

“Time and again it's the children who have struggled with reading and writing who are absolutely captivated by these plays.”

It is precisely the difficulty of Shakespeare's language that can be life-changing, she said.

“It's all about giving the children the tools to decode things. They get a feeling of power. It's like unlocking a secret code. So they feel like they can do anything.”
 

A new apprenticeship programme for technical theatre professionals has been launched to address a shortage in the sector.

The inaugural Regional Theatre Technical Apprenticeship Programme has been initiated by the Mackintosh Foundation in partnership with 13 venues across the UK.

It aims to offer young people a "stepping-stone into the theatre industry" and support the "next generation of technical theatre professionals".

The foundation is funding an apprenticeship at each venue, and applicants can apply through each participating venue's website.

Theatre producer Cameron Mackintosh said: “I started my career sweeping the stage of the Theatre Royal Drury Lane and have worked in nearly every department in the theatre from backstage to marketing – except the wardrobe, as my sewing wasn’t good enough!

"Learning how all the elements of a show are put together has been key to my long career as a producer.”

The 13 venues taking part include Bristol Old Vic, Birmingham Hippodrome, Edinburgh Lyceum Theatre, Nottingham Playhouse and Theatre Clwyd.