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Early Years Development

Music, Drama, Movement and Dance all play a key part in pre-school and early years development we offer a well rounded foundation in all three within our early years classes and our syllabus is based on  detailed research into the child's early stage skills and development curriculum.

Music Development

For young children in particular, music can be extremely valuable in enhancing personal, social and educational development. It's important, therefore, for parents to encourage their children's budding interest in music.

Music can aid memory development and information retrieval in preschool aged children. And, because children enjoy repetition, singing familiar songs and encouraging them to make music can also be greatly beneficial. Action songs, which incorporate drama by requiring children to move their hands or bodies to the music or make particular sounds, are particularly good.

Parents and teachers of school aged students find that studying music can turn children into better students over all. This is because the skills learnt through the study of music can transfer into general study, communication and cognitive skills that are useful in other areas of study. Similarly, working in musical groups and ensembles can teach children to work more effectively together within their general school environment.

Introducing your child to music at an early age does more than start a life long love of music as an art form. Encouraging them to not just listen to music, but to interact and become involved with the act of making music is a valuable step in your child's development.

By involving them in music you are helping to expand their positive problem-solving skills and develop their memory skills. And on a personal and social level, the benefits for the child are huge. By giving them a way of expressing themselves, you will be encouraging their creativity and improving their self-confidence and self-esteem.

 

Drama Development

Young children don't need any encouragement to take part in drama role-play. They do it all the time! pretending to cook at home,  dressing up and acting out favourite stories are traditional and well established aspects of every young child.

Role-play is a drama technique that involves adopting a specific role such as a doctor or shop assistant. The child engaged in role-play does the things that a person carrying out that role would do including mimicking actions and dressing up. Role-play is the one drama technique that is of fundamental importance in the development of everday life skills.

Why is role-play important?

* Role-play allows children to engage in, explore and learn about the everyday roles that occur in their familiar experience; the roles carried out by their parents or carers and members of their community.

* Role-play allows children to express their emotions, positive and negative, in appropriate ways.

* Role-play allows children to explore their own self-image and identity. It helps to build self esteem.

* Role-play can nurture the development of skills (see box).

Skills development include:

Practical life skills: Many everyday activities such as cooking, putting petrol in the car, having your hair done and so on have always been copied by young children. Mimicry is possibly the most fundamental learning skill that any of us has.

Social skills: Learning to share, take turns, cooperate, discuss, negotiate and problem-solve are all supported and encouraged by role-play.

Physical development: Play in all its forms is essential to the development of gross and fine motor skills. Role-play allows children to hone their dexterity and muscular definition for certain tasks.

 

Speaking and listening: Role-play encourages speaking and listening skills and leads to shared understanding, effective communication and cooperation.

 

Dance Development

Movement plays an essential part in the development of young children. Our Syllabus focuses on developing fundamental motor skills, spatial awareness and imagination and expression through movement. As movement is a part of everyday life refining it into a dance art form that can be enjoyed throughout everyday life whilst encouraging exercise and fitness at the same time is very beneficial to Early Years Development.

Our aims for pre-school dance development are:

* To enhance children's movement abilities and physical fitness

* To aid children in becoming physically and spatially aware

* To stimulate children's listening skills

* To encourage children to move expressively

* To build children's confidence and self esteem

* To encourage children to become co-operative and sociable