GCSE dance, is “tap” allowed?

[Puddingypops]

I know I can ask the school and I will, but my son is picking gcse dance as one of his GCSEs but his strong dance is tap.

the school mostly teach contemporary but he studies tap and ballet out of school, does anyone have any experience with choosing these styles for gcse?

thanks xxxx

Yes. It's absolutely okay.

Notwithstanding the comment from @TangoBrava who will know more than I do, I'd be wondering how this works if they aren't teaching it.

Isn't Dance like Drama where things are performed as a group? How would that work if he wants to do a different style?

Sometimes things are permitted for GCSEs but aren't really possible if it isn't what the school wants to do. (e.g. Imagine wanting to do R&J not Macbeth.)

I answered the way I did as tap for this child is taught outside school.

Therefore, they can do a solo dance as part of the assessment and be recorded and do that in the dance studio (or school if they want).

Every year three or four teens record their dance GCSE piece at the start of a studio class at my teen's dance school. They do ballet, tap or modern, etc. I've also seen hip hop and Chinese dancing.

It's not like drama or English Lit GCSE 😁

Super. I said you'd know more than I did.
Interesting to see how it operates. A bit more like PE than Drama.

Thanks so much @TangoBrava thats such great knowledge.

xxxxx

Yes, agree, one of the girls in DD's dance class had her routine filmed at the weekend for her GCSE.

Just for clarity, although some of the performance can be assessed by solo dance, some must be as part of a group e.g. a duo/trio. For AQA, as an example, the duo/trio dance should show:

"opportunities for students to demonstrate the additional knowledge, skills and understanding
specific to duet/trio performances ie relationship content, musicality and sensitivity to other
dancers
opportunities for students to demonstrate safe practice at a challenging level, eg physical
contact and interaction with other dancers, elevations, moving into and out of the floor at
speed"

For this section, therefore, a student might have to dance in the same style as other dancers. But there might also be someone else in the class who does ballet or tap who he could dance with.

But just worth bearing in mind that for some exam boards it can't all be solo dance.