My Practice-based Inquiry

 

For my inquiry I decided it would be great to delve further into a topic which I am passionate about...'The Accessibility and Benefits of Performing Arts in Primary Years'. 

I have worked with primary school children for 7 years and have always found ways to expose children to the wonderful world of performing arts. Firstly, I have seen first-hand how learning songs, dances and role-play can all benefit children by developing their language, communication, fine-motor, gross-motor, social and emotional skills and of course build their confidence. Although these are things I have personally witnessed I wanted to take this subject and research it further to see if my opinions were supported by others. 

The accessibility of performing arts for primary and secondary school children has been a concern of mine for many years. I've always believed in giving all children the opportunity to take part in performing arts. I was advised to focus on primary school children as my inquiry was too broad, however I feel like I've started to go off track again as I began to research the accessibility of performing arts for children in Thailand. As most of my teaching experience was abroad it was difficult to just focus on my local area in the UK. I had to remind myself that this inquiry is already challenging!

My burning questions...

1. Why are creative subjects in school not perceived to be core subjects?? 

2. Do children with disabilities have an equal opportunity to access the performing arts? 

3. How can we make the creative arts more inclusive? 

4. What do other subject teachers think about performing arts in school? 

5. Can we change how others perceive creative arts as just an 'extra-curricular activity'? 

6. Are there studies to prove the benefits children gain from practicing creative subjects? 

7. How do we push the creative arts to the forefront of the school curriculum? 

8. If schools had funding would they spend it on supporting the creative arts? 

9. Why are the arts the first to be dropped when funding is cut? 

I have about a million more questions...which are as equally as frustrating as these ones! 

Let me know what your inquiry topic is in the comments below. :)