Student Teachers’ Perceptions of Teaching Dance in Primary Schools

Recent reform of initial teacher education has altered the balance of school‐based training of students and increased teachers’ responsibility for training students in schools. This paper reports on a preliminary study of primary undergraduate student teachers’ perceptions of their experience in schools during their 2nd year and 4th year period of school‐based work.

In this longitudinal study a sample of 106 students who had completed their second year of school based‐work responded to a questionnaire and 16 from that sample were selected at random for semi‐structured interviews. Data were collected from the same student group on completion of their fourth year term of school based‐work by a second questionnaire (99 respondents) and 15 interviews. Students’ views were sought of the effectiveness of university‐based courses in preparing them to teach dance and their perceptions of the support given to them by teachers in training them to teach this subject. The findings raised concerns about the opportunities students had to teach dance in schools and the low number of students who were able to learn from an experienced dance teacher. This brings into question the degree of readiness of teachers to help train student teachers and raises issues regarding school‐based initial teacher education.

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Linda Rolfe

Linda Rolfe and Sue Chedzoy are with the School of Education, University of Exeter, Exeter, UK. 218