Emily Richards BAPP Blog

Even though I haven't quite finished all the tasks in reader three, I wanted to make sure I leave myself  a lot of time to tackle the big essay. As we can send in drafts before the final deadline date I feel under a lot of pressure to get something done to send in draft version! I want to take every opportunity I can from my tutor to get feedback on this to hopefully end up with the best possible result. I have now sat down on Easter Saturday to hopefully make more of a productive start to my essay, before the fun begins for Easter Sunday tomorrow!  My current feelings whilst trying to write my Critical Reflection... I haven't wrote any kind of essay for five years and the words 'appendices' and 'references' are completely new to me. I have read so many different things on how to Harvard reference, yet I still feel completely clueless! I have wrote down two draft versions on paper. Which is just basically a list of words and feelings on what I ...

The importance of networking was constantly stressed to myself and my peers during our time training at The Hammond. They told us how important it was to get to know other performers, to take classes, to put yourselves out there on social media and to email after auditions. A phrase that came up a lot when I as training, when I meet people at auditions or classes and it even came up during my Skype call with Paula, Kirsty and Jessica was; 'It's not what you know, it's who you know' For this task I will be referring to my networking that helps me with my teaching. What are the current and different ways (tools) that you have, or do, engage your professional network? The current tools I use to network range from more modern ways, such as using my phone and social media, to going to classes and physically meeting people and being put in touch with people in my network by word of mouth (through other teachers and friends in my network). I much prefer the face t...

Before tackling the questions by just simply writing my answers, I first made a mind map for all of the questions and my thoughts and answers for all of them. I  found some of the questions quite difficult to answer, even with referring to my journal to try to find thoughts that might help with my answers. What in your daily practice gets you really enthusiastic to find out more about? Who do you admire who also works with what makes you enthusiastic? The main aspect of teaching that makes me really enthusiastic is the rewarding nature of the job. It is not the feeling of being rewarded that I like, but the things I see that give me that feeling. When I see improvement in pupils from week to week, seeing them enjoy themselves, ask questions because they want to know more and also the comments from children, when they say how much fun they are having and how much they enjoy themselves. This makes me feel that all the lesson planning, choreography, hours of studying and train...

By making Reflective Practice relevant to me and my specific Practice of teaching it is not something I have been aware that I have been using before starting reader 2, although it is something that I have been doing day to day in my life as a teacher. More specifically Donal Schon's reflection-in-action has been a type of reflection I have been using subconsciously whilst I teach. Schon's (1987) describes reflection in action and being ' fostered in artists who respond to what is happening as it happens' .  School (1987) also says how reflection action ' is the more difficult to achieve, but the more powerful for improvement of practice because it results in 'on-line' experiments to adjust and improve one's professional actions. It is more difficult to achieve because the actor must simultaneously attend to performing the action and observe and analyse visor her action, as if from an external perspective.' I always go into the classes I tea...

The Group Skype call was at 12pm with myself, Paula, Jessica and Kirsty. We first spoke about where we were up to with the readers. As none of us have had a chance to fully read through reader three we had no questions regarding this. As I had been unable to make the campus session, it was really interesting to hear from Jessica what was spoke about during the session. We then went on to discuss Reader 3. Paula asked us to identify what Professional Networks we were apart of. These included; Alumni, Social Media, Employers, Teachers, etc. Jessica then specifically mentioned how The Hustle (a group on Facebook for performers, which can be useful for finding work and auditions, or just generally networking with other performers) is very useful for her and how she engages with posts on there specific to her practice. Paula asked me how useful the Hustle was for me, and I explained that I no longer use The Hustle (this was also the same for Kirsty) as I am now a member of groups tha...