This World Teachers’ Day the Royal Opera House would like to recognise and thank all of the amazing teachers for the work that they do. From teaching through the pandemic, to being a consistent support to students the length and breadth of the country, the value that teachers bring to young people and the wider community deserves a huge amount of credit and acknowledgement.
The Royal Opera House is proud to work closely with teachers across the United Kingdom through the Create and Learn initiative. Focusing on singing, dancing and designing, Create and Learn offers free, curriculum-based resources developed with teachers in mind, that can be used in any school. From student activities to lesson plans, teachers do not need familiarity with opera or ballet to use these exceptional resources in the classroom. Running in over 650 schools with more than 1,000 teachers and 30,000 students involved, Create and Learn is a truly national initiative, inspiring students to be creatively confident through the world of opera and ballet.
To further support teachers, the Royal Opera House also partners with schools and organisations to offer free certified CPD training days throughout the year, led by Royal Opera House professionals.
One such partnership is the Royal Opera House’s collaboration with Tees Valley Music Service to deliver one of the most popular Create and Learn programmes on offer – Create & Sing. Running CPD training throughout October in Stockton, Middlesbrough and Darlington, the Royal Opera House’s partnership with Tees Valley Music Service invites teachers to come together to learn about building up their student’s self-expression, performance and confidence, as well as how to implement creative techniques in their teaching.
The Royal Opera House is extremely excited to continue acknowledging and supporting teachers this World Teachers’ Day, and every day, through our school programmes, events and initiatives. If any teachers are interested in the Royal Opera House’s National School Programme, they are encouraged to visit the website for more information.
Amy McGann, Head of the Royal Opera House National Schools Programme, says:
‘The Royal Opera House National Schools Programme is an initiative put in place to support the fantastic work that teachers do. Designed to enhance the curriculum, our programmes allow teachers to explore innovative ways to teach subjects and topics, building up creative confidence and inspiring creativity in the classroom. We couldn’t be more excited about celebrating the amazing teachers we partner and work with this World Teachers’ Day, and we hope our resources will always allow teachers to achieve their individual and wider school goals, with a focus on arts-led learning.’
Tom Powell, Tees Valley Music Service, says:
‘It is so important that children in the Tees Valley – despite being hundreds of miles from London – still have a connection with fantastic organisations like the Royal Opera House. Tees Valley Music Service exists to lower and remove barriers to high quality music education and opportunities and so we are proud to work with ROH to share the Create & Sing project with nearly 100 of our wonderful teaching colleagues from around 70 schools across 5 local authorities. Today we just want to say a huge thank you to the teachers for getting involved, the response has been overwhelmingly positive and we can’t wait to connect with them all at the CPD training next week!’
Teacher, Southfields Primary School, Coventry says:
‘Having taught the building blocks, seen children interpret them and done it myself during CPD, it was truly lovely to tie that all together and see how the professional dancers use all of that on stage. I found I was able to appreciate ballet like I never have before, through a new lens. In the past, when I’d watched ballet, it was mainly for the music and my appreciation of the dance was limited to trying to see the story on stage.
Thanks to Create & Dance training and putting that into action in the classroom, I found myself chuckling as I noticed all the movements, the dynamics, the relationships and how they matched the music and the mood to create a performance that made me laugh, smile, love and cry.’
