Apprenticeship Report

Rhian Lowe is the community dance apprentice with Artis Community as part of the Wales Wide training programme.  What follows is a selection from her second term’s report.

 My role had developed during the second term in comparison to the first. My additional roles were to lead parts of the sessions, work alongside the leaders, engage with themes and begin to experience non-practical duties such as, liaising with the Artis team at the office. On the office side I was given tasks and projects to assist with such as marketing, sharing ideas and learning ways to advertise classes and pull in new clients. This was exciting for me as this was an unfamiliar area of which I found a positive and motivating challenge.

It was extremely noticeable which groups I had worked with during the first term as I had already established a working relationship with those particular groups. This meant that the second term with them felt like a natural development. Though the new groups took a while to get into, as the relationships were not established I found myself having to continue with the development of the apprentice scheme whilst also establishing the connection with the group.

Within these classes I was able to begin to practice my management skills particularly classroom management and time management. As with all new encounters the first few weeks were a struggle, I had to think of my own teaching style, how the groups were familiar with their leaders teaching methods and how to infuse the two together. Once I had connected the two, I was able to focus on managing tasks to fit the individuals within the group.

As with the previous term the post feedback sessions continued after each session or as close to the session as possible. However this term the feedback had more detail and depth to it, as I was being observed over a greater scale of areas. I found the feedback of great use, the majority of feedback I had already noted myself based upon my own reflection.

I have discovered that there is a significant skill to teaching various ages. I do not feel that there will be a point where I would stop learning this skill; I feel that through practice and series of trial and error will allow me to develop more knowledge and, a greater understanding of classroom management.

We’d like congratulate Rhian on her work so far.  We are rightly proud of the Wales Wide training programme, and would like to thank all involved for the support.