Thirty-Four Students, Two Periods, One Folk Unit

Choice of form: a circle or line-based folk form (Garba, or a stick-and-clap line dance) - it has built-in formations, no partner lifts, and a caller role, which gives several legitimate ways into the material.

Weeks 1–2 (taught period): footwork, clap patterns, circle and line formations. Teach every phrase three ways - demonstration, verbal count, projected large diagram. Low-vision student: front-of-circle position, a partner giving short orientation cues ('line of four, two steps right'), taped floor markers for her marks, and a high-contrast prop (sticks) that is genuine to the form rather than a compensatory add-on. Weeks 3–5 (taught + rehearsal): teach in groups of four to five. The four experienced dancers become peer coaches, one per group - this multiplies feedback in a 40-minute period. Shoulder-injury student takes the caller/announcer role and a clap-and-turn pattern with the arms below shoulder height, and leads a formation - all legitimate, none of it a sideline. Weeks 6–7 (rehearsal): assemble the whole class, mark the performance space with tape, run with the track, fix positions, run in costume once. Week 8: dress run, then performance.

The differentiation is in entry route and role, not in lowered expectations: everyone performs the form's vocabulary, and the assessment criteria are identical for all.

Split the rubric into group and individual columns and make both visible to students from week 1.

• Group (about 50%): unison and timing, formation accuracy, use of the space, ensemble cohesion, and the sense of the form's occasion.
• Individual (about 50%): accuracy of the footwork and clap pattern, rhythmic steadiness, energy and commitment, and a short viva - 60 seconds, spoken or recorded, on the form's region, occasion, costume, and one rhythmic cycle. The recorded option matters: it lets the low-vision student demonstrate knowledge without a written format that disadvantages her.
• Individual evidence inside the group: build an eight-count 'lead' into the piece where each student calls or leads, and video two rehearsals. Video plus a lead moment gives you individual evidence that a single group shot cannot.
• Peer and self-assessment using the same rubric, which also teaches them what 'unison' means.

Fairness safeguards: the rubric is given out before teaching starts, the peer-coach role is credited as ensemble contribution, and no student's mark depends on another student's attendance. In a class of 34, the rubric is also your only realistic record - write notes straight after each period, not from memory at the end of term.

The first two periods set the physical and behavioural contract for the remaining fourteen.

1. Floor: bare feet or gripped dance shoes, no socks; mop and check the tiles before every period, because humidity makes them slick and a fall in a circle formation takes down several students at once. Dry the floor at the start, not after the first slip.
2. No lifts, no partner weight-bearing at all. The recent fracture plus 34 students plus a tiled floor makes this non-negotiable; state it as a rule for the whole class, so it does not single out one student.
3. A single stop signal - one clap, everyone freezes. With no mirrors and 34 bodies, your voice will not carry over a track; the signal must be taught and rehearsed like a dance step.
4. Space boundaries marked with tape, and a rule of no travelling outside them.
5. Warm-up and cool-down every period, five minutes each, non-negotiable even in rehearsal weeks.
6. Your own position: stand centrally so you can see the whole room, and rotate the front row so nobody is permanently hidden at the back.
7. Water and rest breaks built into the plan, and a quiet signal a student can use to step out without explanation.