Angus Schools Day of Dance

Fun at the Angus Schools’ Day of Dance

Lorna Valentine describes how Dance Scottish has spread to many schools in the Angus area.

For many years East Angus Branch, like many other branches in Scotland, attended at various primary schools in the region to teach children the dances for their annual days of dance which were held at various locations. Then for a number of years, although the days of dance were still being held, there was not much involvement with the local Branches. Angus Active Schools, having for a few years had volunteers work with them as helpers and MCs for primary school ceilidhs, then contacted the Branch to see how we could work together to bring more dancing into the primary schools, initially just in Arbroath.

A school was chosen to trial, volunteers signed up to help, and by the end of the following year, every primary school in the Arbroath area had an opportunity to Dance Scottish at either a lunch or after-school club and some of the teachers attended a professional development day led by Jayne Riddet from Dumfries Branch. One school took it further and started a family night led by a branch volunteer, where family members and children from pre-school to primary 7 learnt some ceilidh and easy Scottish country dances. This led to the school holding a family ceilidh in the local community centre. Due to costs, it was decided that the Angus Schools’ Day of Dance would be one large combined event in Strathmore Hall in Forfar and in 2019 and 2020 approximately 400 children danced to the music of the Deirdre Adamson Scottish Dance Band. Then the pandemic struck, locked down just days after our Day of Dance. Working again with Active Schools, volunteers from East Angus Branch were the first to be allowed back in to work with the children with teachers anticipating the benefits both mentally and physically of dancing together after the long period of isolation. We began in October 2021 and danced through to December outdoors, sometimes in wellies and always in hats, scarves and gloves. As restrictions began to lift, we were able to move indoors at the beginning of 2022, this time during school hours which enabled us to get the teachers more involved. 2023 took volunteers into three rural primary schools, who integrated Scots Language, Art and IT with learning the dances. They also devised their own 64-bar sequence which they performed at a family ceilidh in March, held in Carmyllie Village Hall.

In April 2023 we saw the return of the Angus Schools’ Day of Dance in the Strathmore Hall in Forfar with approximately 260 children dancing again to the music of Deirdre Adamson and her band. It was obvious from the standard of the dancing that schoolteachers had spent a lot of time practising the dances with the children and the enjoyment was there to be seen on their smiling faces. Overall, a positive outlook for Scottish dance in the Angus area and this has led, after a great many years’ absence, to a children’s class being started in Arbroath. Assisted by Angus Active Schools, a free hall let was obtained in one of the schools, paperwork prepared, courses attended, and we were up and running in October 2022. Although small in numbers the children are keen to get started again when the schools go back in August. The hall is booked, and we hope, with the help of promotion by Active Schools, to welcome some more members to our class. We now have volunteers working in Montrose primary schools so who knows where that will lead?

East Angus Branch has been lucky to have a close association with Angus Active Schools which has allowed us to deliver Scottish country dancing to a great number of children over the past five or more years. We have an enthusiastic co-ordinator, Kelly Moonlight, who has encouraged the children, volunteers and school staff with ideas and suggestions and brought us all together to Dance Scottish. Children’s days of dance and festivals have returned all over Scotland in 2023 and many, East Angus included, have been helped with funding to pay for musicians, transport and halls from a generous grant received by the Scottish Schools Working Group from the William Syson Foundation. There is still some money left in the pot, so if your Branch needs a bit of financial help to get children dancing, please get in touch at sswg@rscds.org