Layton – Work Experience
Hi, my name is Layton, a student from Lipson Co-operative Academy. I really wanted to come to Exim for my work experience because I love to dance and express myself and help people express themselves too. I think that Exim Dance Company is a great way to achieve that because they help disabled people and their families/carers, girls and young women, people from lower socio-economic groups, people from minority ethnic communities, people at risk of educational exclusion, and reduced anti-social behaviour & crime (Plus the Exim team is amazing).
My first session with Beth was at Highbury Trust. I learnt and danced with her and some lovely people, they were a fun and confident bunch. We learnt a little dance to black-eyed peas which was nice and simple. The people there were so free and funny it made me so happy to join in. After that, we made a group dance with a move from everyone in the group and we danced to Green Door by Shaking Stevens and hakuna matata which was also another amazing song to dance to. After that, we did a little bit of freestyling to Shrek music and ended the session with a nice bit of chilled stretching.
In my second session, I did Creative Education which is an alternative provision programme with Kaitlyn and Sophie. We started by writing positive stuff about ourselves on some paper then on another paper we write all the negative stuff about ourselves. We then tore all the bad stuff on the paper up. After that, we did a throwing exercise and we made two patterns where we threw the ball to each other. However, you could only throw the ball to the same person as before. Then, in the second pattern, we changed it so it was different because I was the start of both patterns. I had to decide when to go from pattern one to pattern two which got really confusing after a while. After that, we finished the session with a challenge and we had to see which team could build a town out of marshmallows and spaghetti.
In the last session of my first day of work experience, I helped with the 8 to 10 dance class with Sophie and Angel at Oxford House Creative Hub. Before the session started, we all had a small meeting and went over what we would do in the session. We started off the session by sitting in a circle, introducing ourselves and then we did some games with parachutes. One of the parachute games was to run under it if the fruit you were given was called out. We then played some duck duck goose and these games were the warm-up.
After we had warmed up the children went into groups, pairs or solos and made some small dances in these groups. After the dances, we sat by the mirror and watched all the groups perform. Then we ended the session with another circle time and told the group what we enjoyed the most in the session.
After having a whole day of my Exim work experience overall I enjoyed working with the Exim team and helping out with the classes and activities.
Start of day 2, my first session was with Beth and Chloe which was the movement for all sessions. We started the session with a warm-up and some stretches which included some walking around the dance studio, reaching high up and doing some disco rolls. After that, we learnt a dance to “Never gonna give you up” which Chloe made the dance to. Then we made a dance using everyone’s favourite dance movements and it was an amazing experience. Then we ended the session with some stretches which were led by Beth.
This was followed by a session at Yealmpstone Farm Primary School with Sophie, where an after-school dance club was delivered for Years 1 and 2! Following this session, I returned to Oxford House Creative Hub ready to help Laura and Beth with a weekly inclusive dance session called ADAPT!
Here at Exim, we were so glad to have Layton join us this week for work experience and we hope to see you again in the future!
