Heywood school selected for unique folk arts project

FBDance 58 by Roswitha Chesher

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Holy Family College, Heywood has been chosen to take part in a unique folk arts project that aims to engage pupil’s with their local cultural heritage.

Holy Family will take part in the project along with eighteen other schools from across England. The programme is inspired by The Full English, the most comprehensive free searchable digital archive of English folk songs, tunes, dances and customs in the world.

The initiative, led by the English Folk Dance and Song Society (EFDSS) will see the school develop a project based around dance, music, drama or other folk arts using material from there local area that has been sourced from The Full English digital archive.

Each project will also include strong links to the curriculum and develop a performance piece inspired by the folk material.

Frances Watt, The Full English Learning Manager, said: “Combining The Full English digital archive with school projects allows artists to tailor the content to include material that is relevant to the school and that originated from communities in their region.

“This should bring the archive to life and we hope will interest and inspire students and staff as they work with local and regional songs, tunes and stories.”

She added: “Each project is geared towards creating a legacy showcasing how folk arts can be used effectively in education settings in the future. It will help us develop the skills of schools staff through training support and every school project will be documented so it can provide resources and case studies for future education work.”

The Full English learning programme will also provide training sessions in using folk arts in the curriculum for school staff, and will provide traineeships for 10 emerging folk arts educators.

All of the projects will culminate in a national folk arts in education conference at Birmingham Town Hall on 25 June 2014.

The Full English - www.efdss.org/efdss-the-full-english - is supported by the National Lottery through the Heritage Lottery Fund, the National Folk Music Fund and The Folklore Society.