As we return to face-to-face teaching for the third time in a year, we thought it would be good to remind you of some of the things that are at the forefront of what we do and hope to achieve at Zest Dance over the coming months. Although the hygiene and health and safety guidelines are extremely important, and we are committed to ensuring everyone is safe at Zest Dance, those things won’t feature in this blog. We will be discussing some of the challenges our children have faced over the past year, and how we hope to support them whilst we all navigate the return to normality.
From Monday 19th April 2021, our children’s classes will re-commence in-person in Stratford-upon-Avon and New Milton and we have some brand new classes starting in Kenilworth too. Our classes have been online for a huge proportion of this school year and we realise that our student’s worlds have been turned upside down over the past year due to the pandemic.
As we re-enter our studios, halls and venues, we are determined to re-establish our relationships with students, encourage them to build their relationships with one another, re-kindle their love and joy of dance, focus on positivity and strengthen the sense of belonging and community that we provide by being a part of Zest Dance.
We realise and understand that students may feel that they have lost some confidence, feel like they have forgotten how to dance, forgotten some of their class mates’ names maybe, grown out of their dance uniform or tap shoes and generally feel slightly dis-orientated. We are here to say, it’s okay. It is okay if you are feeling a little bit lost entering that dance studio again. It is okay if you’ve forgotten the name of a dance or step. It is okay if you are feeling a little nervous or anxious. It is okay. And we are here for you every step of the way.
At Zest Dance, we are always talking about how our classes teach lots more than just dance and we truly believe that attending dance class can help in so many areas of a child’s life and with their development. We believe in teaching the whole human and unfortunately, there isn’t a human I know that hasn’t been affected by the last year.
So, as we go back to the studio, please do make sure your child knows all of the procedures and covid rules, of course! But we would really like you to also remind them that,
- It is okay if you’ve forgotten what it feels like to be in that dance class
- It is okay to feel nervous
- Be kind to your friends and teachers
- Enjoy dancing and have fun
- We don’t need to ‘catch up’, we are exactly where we need to be
