Great news – the Morris Federation has been awarded its very first grant from Arts Council England!
Some of our members asked what we are doing to promote the teaching of morris and related activities in schools. So we applied for a grant from Arts Council England.
Arts Council England grant for teaching morris in schools: “Old dances, new people, new age”
The aims of the £27k grant are to create exciting new videos introducing morris dancing, a schools topic called ‘Buzzing Britain’, kit bags for classes of 30, and to teach morris dancing in 18 primary schools across 3 regions. The regions chosen were ‘levelling up for culture’ areas with a diverse cultural community – Preston, Kirklees, and NE Derbyshire – and the teaching will happen in Spring term 2024. The teaching will culminate in 3 regional showcases where all the schools in that region get together to display their dances.
As tutors for Preston and Kirklees we have Damien Barber, with musician Cohen Braithwaite-Kilcoyne, and for NE Derbyshire we have Sarah Matthews and Folk 3D.
The bid team are: Esther Ferry-Kennington, Sally Smith, Barry Goodman, Jenny Everett, and Pauline Woods-Wilson.
As the project progresses, the Education Projects page will be updated: www.morrisfed.org.uk/education/projects
If you have skills to help us, please contact us (use dropdown for ‘Education’)
Donate morris equipment
If you have any usable equipment suitable for primary school children, such as bells, smaller Cotswold/Border sticks, North West sticks, rapper swords, or longswords, that you would be happy to donate to the kit bags, please contact us (use dropdown for membership enquiries).
‘Education’ resources
We have a new ‘Education’ area where you will find some Case Studies that our members have provided. If you could provide a Case Study of your own, there is a template form there with info on how to submit it to us.
There are also links to teaching materials – again if you would like to submit more links or resources, contact us (use dropdown for ‘Education’)
If you wish to subscribe to Morris Federation News via email please fill out this form: Subscribe to Morris Federation News. Member contacts have a separate mailing list.
